


Splitting Hairs

by gabeclone



Category: The Loud House (Cartoon)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-27
Updated: 2018-10-24
Packaged: 2019-07-18 08:59:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 63,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16115135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gabeclone/pseuds/gabeclone
Summary: Sex is planned at some point, but none has happened yet. I have like twenty-eight chapters done for this, or something... I don't remember the exact number off the top of my head. Anyway, I'm going to be posting them here once a day, until the chapters catch up with where I currently am in the story. This is a slow burn romance.





	1. Control timeline 1-1

 

In Lisa's ten years of life she had learned a lot of things. How much electricity you can siphon off the cities power grid before it starts to become a serious problem. That was an embarrassing visit from the local authorities… On the up side, she learned how to obfuscate her power consumption so the authorities couldn’t detect where the drain was happening.

Now however she had two new things she wanted to learn. In her younger years, Lisa sent her brother to another universe. One that was a sort of parallel to her own, where Lincolns counterpart was the only girl in a family of boys. From what she learned of the universe when Lincoln came back, the brothers in that universe were thoroughly unpleasant. If she could allow herself a moment of emotional reflection, it made her glad her sisters weren’t brothers. Though at the time the scare of Lincoln almost not making it back prevented her from investing more study into the matter of parallel worlds, she felt she was more ready for the challenge now. Putting that aside for the moment, the other thing she wanted to learn was about romance. Specifically the difference between a culturally acceptable romance, say between Lincoln and Ronnie Anne Santiago, and a culturally unacceptable romance, say between Lincoln and Lori. In language simple enough for even the biggest simpleton to understand. Lisa wanted to study the differences between a Incestuous relationship and a non incestuous relationship.

Getting back to her previous experiment. Lisa wanted to know if it was possible to create a parallel timeline, and if it was possible, she wanted to know how long it was possible to keep one open. Luckily her first experiment would be able to aid her in her second one quite significantly.

While Lisa was confident that she could induce a romantic relationship between anyone she chose, she didn’t believe she could make her siblings okay with sharing Lincoln without significantly altering their base personalities, something that she was unwilling to do. Therefore she would try to open ten alternate timelines, using her own as the control. If she succeeded, she would encourage a relationship between Lincoln and each of his siblings, including herself; one should never try an experiment on loved ones that one was unwilling to try on oneself. Besides that, she was honestly curious.

Getting back to matter at hand. If she was successful in opening ten alternate timelines, she would encourage a relationship between Lincoln and each of his siblings in the ten off shooting timelines, and encourage a relationship between Lincoln and Ronnie Anne Santiago in the original control timeline. For this experiment she built a machine capable of acting like a stabilizer for the split timelines, preventing them from merging again. it required very little power and was exceedingly durable. She also created a console that sent out a communication signal that only the console itself could pick up. This would allow her and her alternate selves to communicate a compare notes across the divide. Lisa was ready.

The Following days Royal Woods and the surrounding areas experienced frequent blackouts, but the local authorities couldn’t figure out where all the power was going. Eventually they just shrugged their shoulders and gave up. The blackouts did stop happening after all, and without any information on what caused them, there wasn’t much they could do. Little did they know, the power was put to good use, as one Loud family split into eleven Loud families. All in existence at the same time and all oblivious to each other, save for one member from each instance. And each one got to work.

**...**

Control Timeline

  
“Wow, seventeen.” Lincoln spoke, as if talking to an audience, It was a habit of his that comforted him in times of stress. It let him calm down and focus on the task at hand. Of course by this point in his life, it wasn’t even something he only did to calm down. He was so used to addressing his imaginary audience that he found himself slipping into talking to them any time he was alone. “It doesn’t really feel all that different from sixteen to be honest. In another year I’ll get to vote, and last year I got a drivers license… Not that I have a car to drive, but I guess it’s still pretty cool. Seventeen though, It’s a year without any real landmarks.” He scratched the white stubble on his chin. “Still getting older is an achievement. It means I haven’t died yet. It also makes me think back on years past somewhat. I didn’t always have what I have now. It was only at eleven that I discovered my love of drawing and writing. I suppose it shouldn’t have been a surprise given how much I love comic books, but it was.” He exited his room, still the converted closet at the end of the hall. It was slightly bigger now as frequent explosive experimentation on Lisas part required a certain amount of renovation. That requirement also resulted in their parents demanding Lisa move her lab to her bunker in the back yard, but Lincoln was happy to have gotten a larger room out of it. “I’d like to think I’m pretty good now.”

“Hey bro.” Luna mumbled, as he came up behind her in the line to the bathroom. She was dressed in a pair of purple sweat pants and a button up shirt.

“Hey Luna” He replied. Somewhat more awake, possibly due to his habit of talking to his imaginary audience, possibly because he went to bed earlier than her, or possibly for any other reason.

“There was something about today…” Luna trailed off, “Eh, I’ll remember when I’m more awake.”

The door opened, letting Lori out into the hall. She looked refreshed and ready to start her day. Button up suit jacket sans tie, and pajama pants still on. So… Maybe she wasn’t ready to start her day, but she looked refreshed at least. Lori had done well for herself. Only one year out of college and she already had a job as a lawyer, working for a local judge. It was mostly paperwork according to her, which didn’t sound exciting, but it at least sounded successful. She was still living at home though. Houses were expensive as it turns out and why rent an apartment away from the family when you can just pay your parents rent. Privately Lincoln thought she may have seriously missed the chaos of their home when she was away at college.

“Happy birthday Lincoln. I’ll see you when I get off work later!” She called as strolled past.

“Ah man luv, How could I fo’get!” Luna exclaimed, slipping into her british accent. “It’s your birthday today!” She slid back into her normal speech, “How’s it feel to be seventeen Link?”

They Shuffled forward, the space between them and the bathroom door shortening as the line moved. Lynn being admitted to the bathroom and Leni coming up to the door. Luna behind Leni and Lincoln behind her.

“Feels pretty good. One year older and one year wiser.”

“Also one year closer to the sweet embrace of death.”

“HOLY!” Lincoln and Luna startled as Lucy appeared behind them in line.

“Nobody notices me, sigh.” Lucy muttered, actually saying the word sigh, instead of just sighing.

“Don’t scare a bird like that mate. You almost gave me a bloody heart attack” Their Music sister heaved for breath.

“You know, you’d think we would be used to this by now. Sorry for not noticing you Lucy.” Lincoln apologized.

“It’s fine. You have been better about that in the past than most of our siblings.” Lucy accepted.

“Yeah, I was just distracted by my conversation with Luna I guess. Speaking of which.” He pointed ahead as the door opened and Lynn stepped out into the hall. Luna stepping forward as Leni passed her sporty sister on the way into the bathroom.

“Time for your birthday punches little bro.” Lynn came upon Lincoln and cocked her fist back.

Lincoln couldn’t stop himself, even after all this time, he instinctively shied away.

“Ha! Two for flinching!” The sporty Loud made good on her promise by punching her brother twice on the same spot on his arm, walking away with a spring in her step while Lincoln rubbed the sore spot.

“You have to stop flinching bro, you know what happens when you do.” Luna idly commented.

“Yeah, I know, I know.” He blew out a breath. “Speaking of that, do I actually know she’ll only punch me once if I don’t flinch?”

“You do now.” Lucy re-entered the conversation.

“Huh?”

“I learned a long time ago that if I stopped flinching she would only punch me once. She eventually stopped punching me altogether. I think it got boring for her.”

“She punched you too Luce?” Her albino brother asked.

Lucy simply nodded and went silent again.

“You got anything planned for your birthday?” Luna quizzed, “I think Mom and Dad were planning on taking us all out for dinner.”

Lincoln opened his mouth to answer, but was interrupted as the door swept open and Leni skipped out and up to him.

“Hold that thought.” Luna said, stepping into the bathroom and closing the door.

“Happy birthday Lincy!” Leni squealed, wrapping him up in an almost bone crushingly tight hug. As it was, Lincoln was pretty sure he heard his ribs creak.

Leni was very strong for a girl of her size. Not for no reason, she worked with wood a lot and had to lift and carry heavy logs for her carvings. Carvings that she sold as a job, which she had time for because Leni didn’t go to college. Not that she wasn’t smart enough. The Loud parents took her to see a doctor years ago and found out that Leni wasn’t as… special… as they feared. She was simply on the lower end of average intelligence combined with extreme gullibility, a habit of taking things literally, and ADD. She was somewhat aided by having some form of savant syndrome though. All of it together was enough that while she was intelligent enough to succeed at college, nobody thought it was a very good choice for her. Instead, with her siblings help, Leni set up a website for her own small business, from which she sold custom outfits and wood sculptures.

Lincoln tried to hide his gasping breaths and smile at her when she let him go. She smiled innocently and waved as she walked away.

“See you at breakfast Linky.” She spoke, making her way down the stairs.

“She’s more affectionate than usual today.” Lincoln noted out loud.

“Well it is your birthday.” Lucy vocalized announcing her presence once again.

“Yeah”

They didn’t speak again because it was then that the door to the bathroom opened and Luna exited, passing him on the way to the stairs and allowing Lincoln his turn in the washroom.

In a family as large as the Louds, each member could only take so long in the bathroom in the morning. Once the day really got started and every bodies need to use it shifted out of sync with each other you could start taking longer, but in the morning you were allotted no more than ten minutes to do your business before you either had to leave or the rest of the family would bash the door in and kick you out whether you were done or not. Of course this only applied to the Loud children, the Loud parents had their own bathroom connected to their bedroom. All that said Lincoln had a system. He would set a timer on his phone and start the shower, bringing his dental care equipment into the shower with him. He would wash his hair and brush his teeth while rinsing his hair out. Then he would take a caps worth of mouthwash and swish it around while soaping up his face and body. He would spit out the mouthwash and rinse off the soap. After that he would clean the bristles of his tooth brush and step out of the shower. He would turn it off and dry off with a towel, and put his dental care goods back onto the shelf above the sink. Then he would use the toilet if he needed to. Finally, he would put on his outfit for the day, a black and orange striped polo shirt and some blue jeans in this case. He was told once by Lola that black contrasted with his hair well and made him look good, but orange was still his favorite color, so he asked Leni to make him a set of black and orange striped shirts. Thick stripes, he didn’t want to look like a escaped convict. Looking at his phone he saw that he still had three minutes left before it went off, so he turned it off and left the washroom, letting Lucy in, and continued on his way down the stairs to breakfast.

The kitchen was a clutter of people eating or making breakfast. Lynn eating a protein bar while waiting for Leni to finish a fruit smoothie batch in the blender. Lisa drinking something that looked kind of like a smoothie, but clearly wasn’t. It had the consistency of glue, knowing Lisa though it was probably some scientifically formulated breakfast designed to be perfectly healthy. Lily was happily consuming a bowl of Sugar Snaps. Luan was drinking a banana smoothie from Leni's previous batch. Luna was eating a toasted clotted cream and strawberry jam bagel sandwich. Lola and Lana eating french toast sticks little dipping jars of jam, butter, and syrup. Lori descended the stairs, dressed for the day in a suit jacket, blue tie, and suit pants, and grabbed a glass of Leni's finished smoothie before Lynn could get it, ignoring Lynn's protests, and continued out the door to her car. Lincoln could hear Lori pulling out of the drive way as he came up to Leni and Lynn and they split the remaining smoothie batch between them.

“So son, you planning anything today?” Lincolns dad asked, as he came into the room.

“Well.” The president in name began, everyone's attentions drawn to him by their fathers question, “I still have school today, which is okay I suppose. I’ve been working on a picture in art class that I was hoping to get done today. After that I suppose I’ll hang out with Clyde for an hour or two. Then I guess I’ll come home and spend time with my sisters.”

“Using your birthday to hang out with ten girls at once? That’s Smoothie Linc” Luan said, holding up her almost finished drink, “Haha, Get it?”

Her joke was met with a chorus of groans.

“Seriously though, you shouldn’t feel obligated to spend your birthday with us.” The joking sister remarked.

“I don’t feel obligated. You think I don’t like spending time with you? Outside of Clyde and maybe Ronnie Anne, you guys are some of my best friends.” Lincoln earnestly responded.

There was a wave of Awww’s and other noises of appreciation from his sisters.

“That’s sweet dude.” Luna sighed, “Luckily for you I don’t have any classes at the college today. So I’ll see you in the afternoon.”

“You don’t have any classes today?” Lynn looked almost affronted, “I have.” She paused “Math class…” she finished with a hiss.

“Come now. Numbers are hardly as onerous as you’re making them out to be. Calculations are simple matters of logic.” Lisa commented from her place at the table.

“That’s easy for you to say Miss four college masteries.” their sporty sister retorted.

“I have five, but I suspect I shouldn’t be too hard on you if you’re really as bad with simple equations as you profess.” Lisa jabbed.

“Hey!”

“Don’t fight. It’s Linky’s birthday, and think about what he just told us. My feelings go all fuzzy just thinking about it.” Leni reprimanded her two fighting sisters.

That… Made Lincoln feel kind of awkward, his cheeks dusted with a faint blush.

“Well, I’ll see you guys after school.” He exited the situation by ascending the stairs, passing Lucy on the way, grabbing his backpack from his room and leaving the house to walk to school, waving behind him as a farewell.

**...**

School passed in a blur for Lincoln, he just couldn’t stay focused. Though one day of inattention couldn’t hurt. He had pretty good grades for the most part, and he thought himself a good student, so he could afford to daydream through the day just this once. Of course things were still happening around him, and he was still going through the motions, so it was with a jarring halt that he was snapped from his imaginings and found himself staring at his unfinished picture in art class. He contemplated it in silence. It was a supposed to be a tree of every type. A symbol of infinite possibility, to represent the many ways his life could have gone and how many ways it could still go. A horizontal line through the center of the page split the picture in half. A pine tree upside down on the bottom half, it’s roots spread throughout and over the line. The landscape was winter and snow fell up the page from the night sky. An oak stood tall upright on top of the line, fruit of every type that grew on a tree, hanging from the branches. The sky was clear blue, not a cloud in sight. At the bottom there were fifteen figures, looking like simplified versions of himself, his family and his friends. They were small before the looming infinity that was everything that could possibly be. The tree towering over everyone and providing shade. Lincoln just had to give proper shading and it would be done.

Setting to work Lincoln thought of the things this picture reminded him of. His family, his relationships, and his future. His future was pretty nebulous though. He assumed he would be going to the community college in a year like all his older sisters except for Leni and Lori, Lori having gotten a scholarship and gone to a law school. He didn’t know what he was going to do besides that though. Maybe once he got out of college he could start working with Leni and make custom drawings for people. Maybe he could make comic books and get hired by one of the big companies, like Ace comics, the guys who write the Ace Savy comic line. Maybe he could make it on his own as a writer, though Lincoln had heard that it was tough for new writers to break into the business and make a profit.

He thought about his relationship with Clyde and Ronnie Anne. Clyde was his buddy, he always had been and always would be. Or, at least, he hoped he always would be. Lincoln didn’t want to think of a future where he didn’t have his best friend since childhood there beside him.

Ronnie Anne was the girl he thought would be with him forever, like Lori and Bobbie. Of course Lori and Bobbie broke up on good terms years ago, so shows what he knows. Ever since middle school when he and Ronnie started dating in secret to preserve Ronnie’s reputation as a tough girl. He should have knows a relationship had in secret wasn’t going to last, especially when she moved away and they stopped seeing each other as much. Though like with Lori and Bobbie they broke up on good terms. Drifting apart emotionally didn’t have to be dramatic, they both admitted that they didn’t love each other romantically any more and they agreed to still be friends. It wasn’t as awkward to see her after that as he initially thought it would be, but that was probably the influence of Clyde who upon them breaking up, brought them together as often as possible and refused to let either of them get away with not talking.

Thinking about his family inevitably brought him to his sisters. Sometimes people asked him what it was like to grow up in such a large family. He never knew what to tell them. How was he supposed to compare his situation to something else that he’d never experienced before. It would be like explaining why red is different from blue if you’d never seen blue before and only knew it existed from hearing about it in passing. Sometimes people asked him what it was like to grow up with so many sisters. That at least he had some kind of answer to. His experience in the dimension where all his sisters were brothers was brief, but it gave him something to compare his situation to. between having ten sisters and having ten brothers, he much preferred having ten sisters. What he told people who asked, is that if he didn’t have so many sisters, he could easily see his life being much worse. It was a vague answer, but it was true.

Blinking out of his thought, he looked at the clock and saw that the bell was about to ring. Looking back in front of him, his completed picture looked back at him. Lincoln picked it up off the easel and brought it to Mr. Harrow to be graded. Then he picked up his backpack and waited by the door for the bell to ring. The rest of the day was just as incorporeal as the part that came before and eventually the bell rang to let everyone out.

**...**

Clyde's house was the same as always. That is to say, immaculately clean and almost the complete opposite of Lincolns house. Clyde's dads made about as much money as Lincolns parents, but the Mcbride's were a smaller family so they didn’t have to stretch their dollars as much, if at all. This meant that they had nicer stuff… Or at least less broken stuff. Niceness is relative after all, because as much as Lincoln liked hanging out at Clyde's house, he actually liked his own better. Everything had a history to it that gave it a pleasant weight.

“You excited for your birthday man?” Lincoln brother in all but blood asked.

“Well, this is my birthday right now, and it’s just a day. Identical to every other day except that I get gifts and my Mom and Dad take the entire family out to dinner. I think birthdays stopped being really exiting when I turned thirteen.” The Albino answered.

“That’s a serious downer attitude.”

“Not really. Look I’m not saying I’m not happy, because I am, I’m just saying I’m not bouncing in my seat either.”

“Well, would it make you happier to know that your family invited me and Ronnie Anne to go to dinner as well?

“Oh really? Yeah that actually does sound pretty rad.”

“I was hoping that would cheer you up, and with me to keep you as happy as possible until you go home and it’s your sisters responsibility, I have Gravity Shock 2 for us to play. Remastered, with co-op added for the re-release.”

“Oh Awesome, I loved that game.”

**...**

Getting home, Lincoln was greeted by Luna who had been there all day.

“Little Bro! I hope you had a blinding day.” Lincoln, who was well used to Luna's Britishisms by now, knew that blinding meant good.

“It was pretty good, but I’m actually glad to be home now. I hope you have time for me.”

“Of course, I always have time for my favorite brother.”

Lincoln refrained from mentioning that he was her only brother in good humor. Moving up the stairs they made haste to Luna and Luans room, stopping on the way at Lincolns room to grab a drawing pad and some pencils. This was just how they hung out with each other, it was how all the siblings hung out with each other. They would either all do the thing that one of them loved, or they would all do their own thing and just bask in each others company. In this case Lincoln listened to his sister play through rock and reggae, blues and rap, country and swing. She played Dance Like Swagger five times over the course of the hours they hung out, first in it’s original music style, then like it was a pop song, then like a metal song, and like a blues song, and like a jazz song. She played her heart out and invented new songs on the spot that she immediately forgot about in the exhilaration of playing, swinging and stomping her feet around the room, dragging the cord of her guitar behind her and at the end she would write down anything she remembered from the song she just played and get right back into playing whatever came to mind. For five minutes straight she just windmilled her arm around strumming down all the strings and bringing her hand back around to the top.

While this was happening Lincoln drew her and the music. A dynamic picture of her with one booted foot raised on top of of her amp, holding her guitar with her pick holding hand raised in the air mid windmill swing, and music exploding off of her as a physical force. All in black in white, a wave of sound cracked off her guitar like lightning while her short hair blew about in the winds swirling about like a tornado in response to the pure wave of music that cracked the window and acoustically vibrated the walls. Dust and pieces of ceiling rained down behind her.

They took a break and Lincoln showed her his picture. She gazed at it a look of awe and happiness mixing together on her face.

“Lincoln” Luna rasped, “This is fucking ace.”

“Here you draw for a while, I want to see what you come up with.” Lincoln handed her the pad.

Luna took it apprehensively.

“You know I’m not good at this kind of thing.”

“I wasn’t always as good as I am now. I was a beginner once too, and you’ll never improve if you don’t try. Come on I’ll even provide background music with my cello. Maybe it’ll give you inspiration.”

“Yeah, okay, but only because it’s your birthday.” Luna picked up the pencil and Lincoln left to get his cello.

He came back, sat down, and Lincoln played. He played more calmly than Luna, but he still played anything that came to mind. It sounded classical for all of thirty seconds before switching smoothly to a cello version of Infinity streets song Forever, and after that he played Hall of the Mountain King. His bow dragging fluidly across the strings as he played. Playing Cello wasn’t his passion, just as drawing wasn’t Luna's, but he still enjoyed it from time to time and he hoped Luna could enjoy drawing from time to time, he really wanted someone to draw with occasionally.

Lincolns moon sister stopped drawing and put aside the pencil, so Lincoln stopped playing cello and made his way over to see what she had. She held it close to her chest nervously.

“Can I look at your drawing?” Lincoln asked her softly.

“It’s stupid and terrible, you won’t like it.”

“Can I please look at it?”

Luna held it out to him, allowing him to take it from her hands.

Luna wasn’t correct. It wasn’t stupid, it wasn’t terrible, and Lincoln did like it. Admittedly it wasn’t skillfully drawn, but Lincoln didn’t expect her to be amazing at something she never practiced. It also clearly drew inspiration from Lincolns drawing. It was basically a picture of him playing his cello, with wavy lines around him that he assumed was supposed to be the music. The shape was rough and drawing people was hard even for those who practiced drawing, so the Lincoln in the picture looked like what a person might look like if they got in a horrible car crash and partially melted like wax in the sun. Still Lincoln was flattered.

“You know where this belongs? Right up on the fridge.” He smirked.

“Eat a bag of bollocks you bloody git!”

“Ha! Oh man.” Lincoln laughed, “In all seriousness though, I really do like it.”

Luna calmed down from her fleeting indignation “Yeah well, thanks.” She looked faintly red faced.

They both jumped slightly when the sound of the door being kicked open on the first floor rang through the house.

“Lincoln, I’m home! You wanna play a game!?” Lynn's voice called out.

Lincoln looked at Luna.

“It was fun, unless you want to come play too?” He asked even though he was pretty confident she would decline.

“No, I’m good.” She proved him right, and Lincoln strolled out of the room and down the steps to the first floor landing.

“What game did you have in mind?”

**...**

All the way back since they were both children, Lynn had always liked doing parkour and had done her best to instill that like into Lincoln as well, as the sibling closest to her in age who was also closest to her in interests, besides Lana, Lynn had a lot of fun hanging out with her only brother. Parkour made everything better from traveling to games. Tag was almost made into an extreme sport by the inclusion of people flipping over park benches as they chased each other. It made the fun of playground games timeless. Acrobatics made hide and seek way harder, but also more extreme. In a traditional game the players might hide in a tree if they were fit enough to climb. In an acrobatic game of parkour hide and seek, being in a tree was pretty standard and the new ambitious spots became places like stretched across and above a door frame. These were Lynn's favorite games to play with Lincoln. As much as she would like to play football, or soccer, or even tennis with him, Lincoln wasn’t good at any of those things. She didn’t think he would ever be good at those things, considering his past and negative experiences with them. Him switching out with her on his middle school football team came to mind and an example. Still though, she thought she succeeded at injecting a like of parkour and running into him.

“Tag you’re it” He cried, tapping her heels at the end of his roll, he went into after he dived over a fence at the park.

Rolling to his feet, he took off running again, with Lynn on his tail. Pumping her legs and working her lungs to catch up to him. If nothing else the years spent playing together made Lincoln fast. He didn’t have the full body conditioning that Lynn did, but if he were to wear shorts, it would be obvious how much he used his legs. All said Lynn and Lincoln were even in speed, but that was simply because Lincolns body was built for speed, while Lynn was good at it. She knew all the techniques, the ways to turn at sharper angles while retaining her pace, the ways to move so that her stamina lasted longer, ways to move to help her step move more fluidly into the next with less wasted energy and without that brief pause between steps that most people experience without really realizing it. all of it together was enough to allow her to match the natural speed possessed by her brother, but Lynn wasn’t jealous. Lincoln may have speed, but Lynn had a better all around body type. She was good at everything, but not as good at one thing as those built for that specific thing. Still it was better to be a jack of all trades than a master of one.

“You’re it” She hollered, catching him in a turn around a tree.

**...**

As the day passed the rest of the family gathered back at the house. Lincoln and Lynn returned from the park and the family piled into Vanzilla the second, Vanzilla the first having been broken beyond repair in a crash two years prior, or Loris car. Things weren’t as cramped now that they could spread out over two cars. And they drove to a local all your can eat buffet, just about the only cost effective option with a family of that size, It also let them combine foods in weird ways that a regular restaurant would never allow, meaning Lincoln could actually get a peanut butter and sauerkraut sandwich while eating out. They arrived at the buffet and met Clyde and Ronnie Anne at the door, he having drove himself and her with the car his dads got him under the understanding that he would pay them back eventually.

“Hey Lame-o” Ronnie started with a nickname that had persisted since Lincoln was eleven. “How’s it feel to be seventeen?”

“You know you’re the third person to ask me that, and I guess I’ll just have to tell you what I told them. It doesn’t feel all that different from being sixteen.”

“Well, one year until adulthood at least, that’s something to look forward to.” Ronnie shrugged.

Lincoln shrugged as well. He and Ronnie Anne didn’t have as good a relationship as they used to, but that was a given considering they lived across the city from each other. They did still have a pretty good relationship though, and Lincoln appreciated her coming.

They entered, paid, and sat down, and everyone started piling their plates with food, and Lincoln got his peanut butter and sauerkraut sandwich, which made everyone else gag. They ate, they talked, they laughed, and they reminisced, and Lincoln and Ronnie Anne found themselves being moved closer and closer to each other as the night progressed until they were sitting side by side. They had fun. Honestly Lincoln would say this was one of his better birthdays. At the end of it all, Rita broke out the Tupperware and they started piling food in to sneak out of the restaurant in her large bag, because why pay for groceries when you already paid for all you can eat. Unless it was in the fine print, they never specified how long you had to eat the food, therefor getting enough to last another day or two was perfectly within the rules.

The Loud family said their goodbyes to Clyde and Ronnie, Lincoln and her sharing a brief hug before parting, and everyone piled back into their respective cars and drove home.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m pretty sure it’s never specified what Lincolns favorite cuisine is, other than the fact that he likes Sauerkraut and peanut butter sandwiched. Which sound horrifying, but I suppose I shouldn’t judge without trying one. Anyway, just based on the fact that he likes sauerkraut I decided that French is his favorite cuisine. That doesn’t have anything to do with the chapter because they don’t go to a french restaurant, but that’s just because I’ve never heard of a casual sit down french restaurant in the USA. Also I don’t know anything about French cuisine other than that sauerkraut is common. I should fix that hole in my food education.
> 
> It’s actually quite fun to describe a characters daily habits.
> 
> Man writing Luan is hard, I’m not good at puns. I absolutely dread the Luan chapters.
> 
> As far as drawing as a skill goes for me, I can draw bat wings, fire, and roses perfectly from my imagination, but anything else I have to be looking at. I’m told I can capture the image of something I’m looking at pretty accurately, but if I’m not looking at what I’m drawing and it isn’t one of the three things I can draw anyway, it’s going to look terrible. I can also draw an okay tree from my imagination. It’s not going to be professional level like it would be with a rose, bat wings, or fire, but it’s going to be recognizable at least. I could probably pass a tree drawn by me off being expertly drawn, but stylistically different.
> 
> If you’re wondering: Gravity Shock 2 is based on System Shock 2. Dance like Swagger is based of Move like Jagger. and Infinity street is just a name I thought would be a good band name. Consequently I wasn’t thinking of anything when I wrote in the song Forever, it just sounded like the name of a song a band called Infinity Street might write.
> 
> I’m assuming the the world of the Loud House is basically an alternate time line version of our world. So a lot of stuff is similar but different, and stuff that’s old enough is the same between our worlds.
> 
> That pause between steps is from when you’re pushing up against gravity so you can take your next step without tripping and eating shit in the dirt. There are ways to get around it though actually. Of course that statement is based on nothing by my personal observation of myself running and trying to fix that issue when I spotted it, so it could be a problem that doesn’t exist for anyone else. I should also clarify that by pause, I don’t mean you stop entirely for a fraction of a second and then keep running, I mean you’re moving forward more slowly while you’re also pushing up against gravity than you are during the rest of the step.
> 
> Most of the time I use some of the shorter chapter notes as segment separators. I'm not doing that this time, or for the first eleven chapter of this story for... Reasons I don't feel like explaining.


	2. Timeline 2-1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I’m writing the first day of each timeline all in one sitting, so I don’t actually have anything new to say here for the most part… A storm is developing outside. The wind is blowing so hard it’s raining sideways. Actually never mind on the writing this all in one sitting thing. The storm knocked my internet out for a day and I like to listen to music while writing, so this now is actually the day after I started writing. All I got down on this chapter yesterday was “Lori had a dream with Lincoln in it.” Everything else I’m writing today.

 

  
Lori was having a dream with Lincoln in it. She was prosecuting a suspect in court who looked like a fish combined with a spider, but she instinctively knew it was one of her teachers from law school.

“Admit it!” She accused pointing her finger at the spider-fish, “You murdered Mrs. Grisilda.” She waved her hand at a giant half eaten apple wearing a dress and glasses that was laying on its side in the middle of the court room. “Stole all her apples, and failed me for that one paper on famous historical cases because you’re literally a creepy creeper, who wanted to hit on me when I wrote the make up paper!”

The court audience gasped in shock.

“Whisper, whisper, whisper, whisper,” She heard them whisper behind her “Sssshashashushussslassspsss” They continued, in that fake whispering children do when they want other children to think they’re actually saying something.

“You can’t prove anything.” Spider-fish gurgled wetly in outrage, turning to cough up a puddle of phlegm. “I was in my car driving at the time of the accident.”

“Wait, accident? What accident? We’re talking about a murder!” The Most Magnificent Lawyer yelled quizzically.

Suddenly the judge who had been silent up to this point was shot dead and the window next to him exploded inward.

“Oh shit a sniper! Everyone get down!” Lori dove to the ground.

“Now’s my chance!” Spider-fish bellowed, ripping his booth to pieces and growing in size as he advanced on a Lori who was scrambling back as fast as she could. “You’ll pay for this!”

Unexpectedly the spider-fish was thrown back, impacting the wall and a figure stood in front of Lori.

He had white hair, he was thin and tall and he was wearing colorful spandex and a cape.

“Stay away from my sis- I mean The Most Magnificent Lawyer, fiend!” He spoke in a bombastic manner. “Are you okay Lo- Miss?” He asked gently, turning to her and bending down to help her up.

Then her alarm went off. She woke with a start as her pillow shook. Lori had an alarm that shook her pillow and head instead of going off with a loud beeping sound. She didn’t like alarms that beeped, and she usually had to wake up early for her job. She didn’t want to wake everybody else up if they didn’t also have to be awake for whatever reason.

“That would be just like Lincoln.” She chuckled, thinking back on her dream.

Getting up, she gathered her stuff for the day. Rummaging around her closet for a clean and pressed suit jacket, she would have to do her laundry soon. Hearing a murmur and the creak of a bed, she looked over her shoulder to see that despite her concern over loud alarms, it was actually her turning on the closet light that woke Leni up. She winced in sympathy and thought about apologizing, but didn’t because Leni probably wasn’t awake enough to register anything she said anyway. Grabbing a suit jacket, she decided to just put on her pants and tie after she came back to the room.

Walking out into the hall she found out that she wasn’t the first one up, though she wasn’t overly surprised. She stood in line behind Lana, Lola, and Lisa, somebody already in the bathroom, though she didn’t know who. Nobody really talked to each other beyond mumbled greetings sighting that it was too early and they were all too tired to really hold any kind of meaningful conversation.

The door to the washroom opened and Lily came skipping out, refreshed and revived by the healing powers of spring The Shower. The line stumbled forward and Lisa entered, looking particularly dead on her feet. That would have worried Lori had it been anyone else, but Lisa was well known for working on experiments well into the night. Even ignoring that, Lisa had a job before any of them. She actually worked at the community college that their other sisters went to, teaching advanced theoretical physics and occasionally substituting for the chemistry teacher. She was a good teacher according to Luan, and Lori was willing to take her word on that.

Thinking about Lincoln got her thinking about Bobby. It wasn’t quite as much of a leap as that. Thinking about Lincoln got her thinking about Ronnie, which got her thinking about Bobby, but in the end the result was the same. She used to think she and Bobby would be together forever. She supposed she should have known better. Plenty of high school sweetheart romances lasted and the couple got married, but the vast majority didn’t. In high school you’re still young. You’re mature enough to think you know everything and you have nothing else to learn, but you still have the support of your parents and your teachers. You haven’t yet experienced true hardship. There’s a bunch of TV shows about setting people up together in exotic locations, Lori was guilty of watching one herself. Dream Boat, the show the entire family sat down to watch together. However, you didn’t truly learn if you were compatible with each other during the best times in your life. When you’re having fun, you’re having fun. You could be having fun with anyone, excluding people who were truly abhorrent to your sensibilities. It was only in times of strife that you learned who you were meant to be with. It was the person who could and would work with you to not only make the current situation better, but also make the current situation temporary, so you could both move on to good times, as oppose to best-of-a-bad-situation times. If those TV shows really wanted their couples to remain together, they should put them through hell, but of course, nobody would make that show. Mostly for legal reasons. She didn’t think production companies actually cared about human rights enough to not make that show for any other reason.

The door opened and Lisa stepped out looking less dead on her feet, but not quite awake yet. She took careful steps down the hall and entered the room she shared with Lily. Lola entered the wash room and Lori came ever closer to experiencing her precious morning shower. The revitalizing power of hot water streaming down her body in sheets and waterfalls, soothing her tired and sleepy muscles and opening her pores to release the grimes and the oils gathered throughout the night. A shiver ran down her spine just thinking about it. Imagining it, she could almost feel the luscious liquid running down her scalp and through her hair.

Lynn came a stop behind her, and Leni just after, stopping behind Lynn. Lori mumbled a greeting at them, and decided to give apologizing to Leni for waking her up a shot now.

“Hey… Leni, Uh, sorry for like… literally waking you up this morning.” Lori could almost feel herself falling back to sleep even as she stood there. She really needed that shower.

Her apology fell on deaf ears as it seemed that Leni was actually asleep standing up. Lori made an aborted shrug motion and turned back to face the front of the line again.

The door opened and Lola strut out, looking like she wanted nothing more than to have a silky scarf she could wave around like she was doing the talent portion of a beauty pageant. Lana entered and Lori found herself directly in front of the door. Looking back down the line, she could see Luna coming out of the bedroom she shared with Luan and stagger to a stop at the end of the line. She looked more awake then anyone else in the line, but not quite lively.

If there was one consolation to the fact that she still wasn’t in the bathroom, it was that she probably didn’t have to wait that long. Lana didn’t usually take that long in the shower. She liked the feeling of dirt and grime for some reason that Lori couldn’t comprehend, so she usually only took as long as was necessary to get basically clean, then she would let the next person in.

Sure enough, after only four minutes in the bathroom the door opened and Lana stepped out, applying her ever present hat to her head, and Lori stepped past her into the room. She felt like sinking to her knees and worshiping the bathtub for a few seconds, but she didn’t because that would waste time that she could use in the shower. Hanging her suit jacket over the the towel rack, she divested herself of her garments. Her arms rose and she snapped one button separate at a time, working her way down with deliberation, shrugging the open shirt off her shoulders she let gravity drag it down, feeling the soft fabric whisper over the flesh of her arms and back and pool at her feet. Hooking her thumbs into the band of her sweat pants and panties, she dragged it down her legs. Stepped on the cuff with one foot, she lifted her other leg out of the mess of pooled cloth and set it down outside it. Using the new balance provided by her escaped leg, she stood on one foot and shook the mass of cloth off her other leg. She didn’t wear a bra to bed, so she didn’t have to take one off. Instead she turned the water on to her preferred steaming temperature and waited in the cool air of the room for the water to heat.

Stepping into the water spray, a shudder of pleasure rippled through her body and she almost collapsed onto the floor of the tub from a weakness of the knees. Her fingers scrabbled over the tile wall as she sought purchase to hold herself up. This was heaven, the small span of time spent between entering the shower and exiting the shower, might as well have existed in another dimension for how different it felt from the rest of her day. It was almost enough to make her miss the faintly remembered days when she didn’t have as many siblings and she got to take longer in the shower. Almost, not actually though, Lori wouldn’t give up her siblings for anything. She came back to herself and quickly squeezed a dollop of shampoo into her hand, she spread it evenly between her palms and massaged it into her scalp. She kneaded small rotations in her temple, trailing her fingers all the way the base of her skull. Gathering handfuls of hair in each hand, she tugged gently and pulled them through, lathering her hair and feeling the pleasant tingle of tension created by the tug. She brought her head back under the spray and sighed as the grime of yesterday was washed away. Then she repeated the process with conditioner, and sighed again as she ran her fingers through her newly silky strands. Grabbing a bar of soap she slicked it up and down her form, and rinsed off. As much pleasure as she got from washing her hair, she didn’t get the same feeling from washing her body. She didn’t quite know why. She shut the spray off and stepped onto the bath mat, not grabbing a towel yet, she simply let her body air dry, as she flossed, brushed, and used mouth wash. She finished by vigorously scrubbing a towel through her hair to dry it quickly and then using the same towel to take care of any lingering moisture clinging to her body. She slipped her sweat pants and panties back up, to rest snugly at her hips. She put on a bra for the day and snapped the hooks on the back together, buttoned up a white dress shirt and put her suit jacket on over it, then paused a moment to make sure she hadn’t forgotten anything and left the room.

Lincoln was standing in line behind Luna now. The sight of him brought a smile to her face and a chuckle to her lips, as she remembered her dream. She felt the urge to tussle his hair, even though he was a little bit taller than her now, and she didn’t restrain herself.

“Happy birthday Lincoln. I’ll see you when I get off work later.” She said, standing in front of him to quickly play with his hair, even as he started leaning back to escape.

“Thanks.” he returned.

A feeling of happiness welled up in Lori even as she ambled back to her and Leni's room to put on the rest of her work outfit. Finishing that she double timed it down the steps and made to grab a glass of Leni's smoothies before Lynn could get it. She wasn’t quite fast enough and was forced to wait a moment, standing next to her favorite brother while Leni Portioned the rest of the smoothie out for the three of them. Lori ruffled his hair again and took her glass to the car with her, so she could drink it on the way to work.

**...**

She made fast time and arrived at the courthouse, where she worked in an office down the hall from the courtroom. Lincoln once told her he thought her job sounded incredibly boring, and he was mostly right. It was eighty percent paperwork, but the moments she relished. The moments she loved more than anything were the moments when she was defending someone she knew to be innocent, or prosecuting someone she knew to be guilty, and she got to sway the minds and emotions of the jury with words alone. This was her passion. She felt like a superhero from one of the comic books that Lincoln read. She would be Persuasion Lady. There was nothing more intoxicating to her than to follow a trail of clues and logic to its ultimate conclusion and prove to the jury without a shadow of a doubt that her client was innocent, or the defendant was guilty.

Still though, most of it was paperwork. Necessary paperwork, you didn’t want to go into a case unprepared or without having filled out the necessary forms. That would be embarrassing. So as much as she wanted to phase out and just go through the motions, she really couldn’t. Even though most of this wasn’t so important as proving the innocents of someone who had been wronged.

Let’s see… Mrs. Harrison pointed out the man she thought stole her husbands ashes, but there wasn’t enough evidence to convict, nor was it even very likely that she had picked the correct person. Mrs. Harrison wore glasses, and hadn’t been wearing them when the supposed break in happened… Upon cursory police investigation, there didn’t even seem to be a break in… It was deemed likely that Mrs Harrison had simply misplaces her husbands ashes and forgot… The ashes were found on the back porch a week later… Blah, blah, blah… No go back and read that, it could be important… medical records showed Mrs. Harrison had a history of dementia… The accused had a solid alibi. All and all there didn’t seem to actually be a case here. Literally nobody committed a crime. It was just a very sad read. Lori had dealt with worse in the past though, so it didn’t depress her for long.

Okay on to the next case…

**...**

Work passed slowly, but it was eventually over, and Lori had enough time to drive home to hang out with Lincoln. When she arrived she found out from Luna that he and Lynn had gone to the park together, and she couldn’t help but feel faintly disappointed. She had been hoping to spend time with him today. Still she supposed there was nothing for it. She would either have to wait for them to get home or go to the park, and she wasn’t going to do the latter. Lori knew what Lincoln and Lynn were doing there and she wanted no part in running around and getting dirtied up. Well, she had the day off tomorrow, maybe Lincoln would want to spend time with her then. In the mean time, she supposed she could just hang out with her other siblings.

As an unfortunate consequence of never finding out what her passion was until it was time to choose a college, Lori tried to replace it with other things. Things without substance. A phone, a romance without true love, temporary power over those who came after her, gossip. As an unfortunate consequence of replacing her lack of passion with things that didn’t matter, Lori never learned the passions of her siblings. She knew what they were, but she couldn’t keep up with them. The only skill she had in common with any of her siblings was that she could play the trumpet, and not even very well. As an unfortunate consequence of never learning the passions of her siblings, Lori didn’t have a lot in common with them. It’s something that bothered her.

She could still try though. Checking in on Luna, Lori found her quietly strumming her guitar and writing things down in a note book. The oldest Loud sibling decided to leave her alone and find someone else. Finding Lucy in her room, she sat down next to her and looked over her goth sisters shoulder and the note pad she was writing in.

“Sigh.” Lucy said instead of doing, “Hi Lori.”

“Do you have a new poem? Can I listen to it?”

“You want to listen to my poem? Why? You never want to do that.”

“Truthfully? I’m literally having a very small existential crisis and I was hoping you could help me calm down.”

Lucy stared at her her a moment, then she actually sighed instead of just saying the word, and flipped through her note book, stopping on a seemingly random page.

“Alliteration always attracted my attention, alight an airtight alleviation of angst on a abbey of the actualization of word. I abscond from abomination and abet my alacrity.”

“Wow, I literally don’t think I could write that in a million years. It isn’t as dark as I expected though.” Lori uttered, “Not that there’s anything wrong with that.” She hastened to add.

“I don’t exclusively write morbid poems you know. I write them a lot, but that’s because I like the themes. Sometimes though, I just want to write something cheerful. Or in this case, write something about wanting to write something cheerful.”

“It was nice. I liked it.”

Lucy peered at her from under her bangs.

“Would you like to hear another?”

“I would love to.”

**...**

It came to pass that Lincoln and Lynn arrived home and the family gathered to drive to the all you can eat buffet, just about the only cost effective option for a family of their size. They piled into two cars, Vanzilla the second, and Loris own car. The ride was a lot less cramped with them spread over two vehicles, and they arrived at the buffet in record time. The Loud parents paid for everyone and they sprawled their entire family over two booths, directly next to each other. They all gathered as much food as they could eat onto their plates and still more, to sneak out of the restaurant in tupperware hidden in their moms large purse. And they started talking and reminiscing and just enjoying each others company, and as the meal progressed and people moved around Lori found herself being moved closer and closer to Lincoln, until out of no conscious effort on her own part, she was sitting right next to him.

“Don’t you think you would have had more fun if you invited Clyde to come with us?” She had to ask.

“Well yeah, it would have been nice, but sometimes I just want to hang out with you guys.” He responded.

“Yeah, you missed it earlier Lori. After you left he said that outside of Clyde, we’re some of his best friends. It was so cute!” Leni broke into the conversation with a piece of information that honestly made Lori feel really good.

“That’s” She started.

“Seriously don’t say anything. It’s embarrassing enough that they won’t stop talking about it.” Her presidential brother interrupted her.

She couldn’t help it. She really wanted to rub his head. She just didn’t this time because her hands were covered in food that she didn’t want to get into his hair.

“How was your day while I was at work?” she asked instead.

So her favorite brother told her about his day. About how he played video games with Clyde, which actually sounded kind of fun to Lori. About how he drew a picture of Luna while she jammed on her guitar and they switched so she drew a picture of him while he jammed on his cello. About how he played parkour tag with Lynn until it came time for them to leave for the buffet. And Lori just listened to him talk, asking the occasional question, but otherwise silent.

Eventually the night drew to a close and they had to stuff all the extra food they hadn’t eaten into their Moms purse, and leave the restaurant. They gathered back around the cars and got ready to leave.

“Come ride with me Linc.” Lori insisted, holding the passenger door open on her car.

Lincoln came, got in, and they drove home together.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter isn’t as long as the previous chapter. That’s mostly because Lori spent almost her entire day at work and I don’t know a whole lot about what lawyers actually do. Consequently I didn’t have as much to work with as far as describing her day goes.


	3. Timeline 3-1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter three. Still the same day, just from a different sisters point of view and a different time line, so different things happen. I don’t think I’ve ever written such a character driven narrative. It’s fun, and exhausting yet revitalizing. Seriously have you ever done something that made you tired and yet also made you unable to stop? This is basically that for me.

 

 

  
Leni woke up that morning with a sudden, intense and unexplained desire to hug her favorite Linky. Not that the feeling required an explanation. She often felt like hugging Lincoln. She often felt like hugging a lot of people, but on this occasion she wanted nothing more than to pick him up and swing him around like those people in the movies.

Opening her eyes she could see Lori digging through her closet for clothes. Looking over her shoulder Lori met eyes with her.

“Oh, Sorry for waking you up Leni.” She apologized.

It was fine though, Leni was pretty sure she would have woken up anyway. She felt totes awake. She didn’t even think she needed a shower to start her day, but she would still take one because not taking a shower was totally gross.

Getting out of bed Leni began a series of stretches that she learned would help her to not cramp later when she started picking up heavy things. She arced her back as much as it would go, until she was looking at the corner of the ceiling behind her. She planted her feet shoulder length apart and twisted her upper body right as far as she could and then left as far as she could. She reached one arm above her head and angled it down behind her neck so she could pull it with her other hand, then she did the same with the other arm. She bent at the waist and reached down to grasp one foot without bending her knees, then she rose and bent to grab the other foot. Finally she finished with twenty jumping jacks to get the blood flowing. Having done her pre heavy lifting work out, she left the room and came upon the line to the bathroom. Coming to a stop behind Luna, who looked more awake than most other people in the line.

“Hi, hi, Moon Moon!” She cried, earning a chuckle from Luna and a sleepy grumble from the rest of the line.

“You’re awake this morning.” Luna replied.

“Yeah, I don’t know why.”

“Did you go to sleep earlier than usual?”

“No,” Leni tilted her head and pressed a single finger into her downward facing cheek, “I think I just had a totes amazing dream.”

“Hey Leni, Luna.” Lincoln joined the conversation, coming to a stop behind Leni, only to be swept into a hug.

“Lincy. Ooooh happy birthday Lincy.”

“Ah man luv! how could I fo’get?” Luna exclaimed, slipping into a British accent, as she watched Leni swing their brother around, “It’s your birthday today.” She slid back into her normal speech, “Hows it feel to be seventeen?”

“Urgh” Lincoln struggled to form a reply. He took as deep a breath as he could manage with Leni still holding him. “Uh, could you let go of me Leni?”

“No. You’re mine now.”

The door opened and Lori stepped into the hall, pausing briefly at the sight of Leni and Lincoln before seeming to shrug mentally and continue walking.

“Happy birthday Lincoln, I’ll see you when I get off work!” She continued down the hall to the room she shared with Leni.

“Uh.” He took a shallow breath, “Feels, pretty uh, good I guess. I’m one year older, and urg, one year wiser.”

“And one year closer to the sweet embrace of death.” Lucy announced her presence.

“Holy!” Luna Startled, though Lincoln and Leni didn’t. They had seen her coming while swinging around or being swung around.

“I think I might be even closer than that.” Lincoln exhaled, earning a slight smirk of amusement from Lucy.

“So what do you have planned for your birthday?” Luna asked.

“Well-“ Her brother was interrupted as the door opened, admitting Lynn into the hall.

“Hold that thought little bro.” Luna paused him, stepping through the open portal to the bathroom.

“Time for you’re birthday punches bro.” Lynn reared her fist back, but was forced to stop when Leni imposed herself in front of her brother, still holding him.

“NO. He’s mine right now. Punch him when he’s not mine.” Leni declared.

“Ooookaaaay. I’ll see you later Lincoln, and I won’t forget.” She smirked and took the steps two at a time.

“Lucy, save me.” Leni could hear her little brother hiss over her shoulder. He probably wasn’t actually trying that hard to hide his words from her, if he was he probably would have tried some kind of charades thing with his hands to send the message across. As much as Lincoln protested being picked up and hugged like this, Leni didn’t believe he really minded it too much. She wanted to hug him and that was all the reason Lincoln needed to put up with it. That’s what made him the best brother. It’s what made him her favorite brother. Others would say that Lincoln was her only brother, but Leni didn’t mean he was her favorite out of all the brothers she had in her family. Leni meant that Lincoln was her favorite brother out of any brother anywhere. That was high praise.

“Sorry Lincoln, but if I try she might get me as well, and then who would be around to save you if things got really bad.” Lucy responded. Leni could almost hear the smirk in her voice.

“You traitor.” He muttered.

It didn’t matter for much longer though because only a minute or two later the door opened and Luna stepped out, holding the door open for whoever was next. Forcing Leni to let her little bro go, unless she wanted to bring him in the shower with her, which she didn’t, though she found herself surprisingly not repulsed by the idea. Whatever, that wasn’t a thought for now. She would think about it later if it was important enough.

Leni closed the door behind and made sure it was locked, she had forgotten to check in the past and she wasn’t eager to repeat the experience. Stepping in front of the mirror she squeezed a blob of paste onto her toothbrush and brought it to her mouth. Spreading her lips in the biggest smile she could comfortably manage, which was pretty big. Leni liked smiling and practiced as much as possible to have the best smile ever, because her family was counting on her to be happy and bring the joy when nobody else could or would. She grinned at her mirror self and brought the brush up to her toothy grin, starting on the left and making her way to the right she vigorously brushed her choppers, little circles and big circles and then her gums. To have a totally amazing smile your entire mouth had to be in top form. She opened her jaw to create and gap between her teeth and brushed the back and her tongue as well. Spitting out the foamy paste she wrapped a length of floss around two fingers on each hand and reached into the back of her mouth to get at the hard to reach teeth, gently sawing between her molars she went one tooth at a time back around to the front and then the other side. She switched to the top at the very back on the other side and went back around again, making sure to get the space between each tooth evenly. Spitting again, she carefully disposed the floss in the trash and poured a cap of purple mouth wash. Sipping the liquid into her mouth she swished it around, shaking her head around and tilting it back to gargle the wash before spitting it into the sink.

She gave herself one last smile in the mirror and turned away to take a shower. She grabbed the hem of her nightgown and quickly brought it up over her head, hurling it into the air like she was throwing confetti. She didn’t wear underwear to sleep, it was uncomfortable. She turned on the water, stepped in immediately and shrieked in distress because she had forgotten that the water needed time to heat. It Was SOOOO COLD! AAAAAHHHHH! Goosebumps were appearing all over her body, and she crouched in the bottom of the shower in a vain and instinctual attempted to hide from the feeling. It was temporary though. It wasn’t long before the water started to warm up and come to her preferred temperature. She climbed to her feet and found the shampoo and conditioner. She put and squirt of both in her hair at the same time and mixed them around. Dragging her fingers through her blond hair to get it as covered as possible, then stepping under the stream of water and washing it all out. With her hair all washed, Leni stepped out of the shower, and turned the stream off, she wrapped a towel around her body and another around her hair. She sat on the toilet and waited to be dried with her eyes closed, listening to what she could hear of the sounds of the house and the people who lived in it. It was peaceful just sitting there, hearing the sounds of life in the Loud house. She was done drying though, so she dropped the towels to the ground, and dressed herself for the day.

Unlocking the door, she opened the passage to her Licky, and wandered down the steps into the kitchen, where she saw Luna toasting a bagel, Lily pouring a bowl of Sugar Snaps, And Lola and Lana pulling cold french toast sticks out of the freezer. Leni surveyed the room, seeing what she needed to, she tread over to the refrigerator and grasped the door before the twins could close it, she reached in and pulled out several bags of frozen fruit. Strawberries, mango's, bananas, pineapples. Closing the freezer she opened the fridge and collected various containers and jugs. Apple juice, plain yogurt, orange juice, milk. Gliding over to the blender she set everything up.

Luan sidled up, “Do you take requests. I would find a banana smoothie appealing. Haha, get it?”

Leni thought about that, “Like because a banana has a peel?”

“Hey, yeah, good job.” Leni's jokester sister congratulated her.

Leni turned back to the blender and picked up a bag of mango's, stopping when Luan waved to get her attention again.

“I wasn’t just telling a joke, I actually do want a banana smoothie.”

“Oh”, Leni set the bag of mango's back down and lifted the frozen bananas and the yogurt. She scooped a few large spoonfuls of yogurt into the blender, she put in an entire frozen banana and a caps worth of vanilla extract, for a more… for a better flavor. She poured a little milk in to make it more liquidy, put on the lid and turned on the blender. There was a short struggle as the blades fought to liquify an entire frozen banana, but things smoothed out soon enough and Leni tipped the smoothie into a glass.

Luan gave a thumbs up in thanks, and walked away. She couldn’t say anything because she was drawing a mouthful of smoothie from the glass.

Turning back to her station, Leni washed out the blender cup and started filling it with chunks of mango, strawberry, and pineapple. She tipped some apple juice into the pitcher for the wet stuff, and finished with a small dollop of plain yogurt. Lynn came up to her eating a protein bar and not saying anything because her mouth was full of protein bar. As she dialed the knob on the base, Leni noticed Lincoln had come down from his shower out of the corner of her eye. She was tempted to turn away from blender and go talk to him but the last time she did something like that the blender went out of control and splattered half made smoothie all over the walls. As much as her siblings assured her that it was likely a one time thing, a freak accident, Leni couldn’t help but feel responsible. So she stayed at her station and waited for the smoothie to become smooth. It wasn’t a smoothie if it wasn’t smooth. It was a chunky. From the same corner of the same eye, Leni could also see that Lori was quick stepping her way down the steps. Taking four more glasses out of the cabinet Leni set about filling each glass, Lori stepping in and grabbing the first filled glass before Lynn could get it. Leni thought that was a little rude, but Lori was probably in a hurry so she didn’t let it bother her too much. Instead she filled the other three glasses and put the blender pitcher in the sink, grasping one of the glasses with Lynn and Lincoln.

Draining their glasses they each placed theirs in the sink, whereupon Lincoln was slugged twice in the arm by Lynn.

“OW! Fuuu-…” He trailed off, looking in Lily's direction. “What was that for?”

“You thought I wouldn’t remember didn’t you?” Lynn returned with.

“I didn’t flinch though, why’d you punch me twice?”

“No but you hid behind Leni earlier and that’s just as bad.”

“I didn’t hide! She was… Whatever, I’m going to school.” Lincoln made his way back up the stairs, came back with his back pack and trudged out the door.

“That was mean Lynn.” Leni proclaimed

“What, he’s seventeen now. He should learn to take his lumps like a man.” Lynn retorted, wandering off afterwards.

Lucy glided over, “Do you have any more smoothie?”

“No, sorry Luce, but I can make another if you want.” Leni answered.

“Sigh. It’s fine. I’ll just have a bowl of Sugar Snaps.” Lucy slunk off, grabbing a bowl from the cabinet on her way.

Leni relaxed against the counter and watched her family move around her, talking, eating, and getting ready for the day, and she figured she should get ready for her own work day.

**...**

Checking her website, she saw that someone commissioned a custom wood sculpture of themselves fist fighting a pizza. Leni wasn’t sure why anyone would want that, but she wasn’t going to ask. She learned early on in her business that a lot of people got angry or embarrassed when asked to explain why they wanted something and that lost her a lot of customers in the beginning, so she didn’t ask anymore. She was still curious though.

Okay to start this she would need to carve out the rough shapes first, way larger than the end product was going to be, so she had room to make mistakes and add details. Leni got stared carving the rough shape of a person and a circle. She wondered if they wanted the pizza to be fighting back or just taking it. They never specified, so Leni decided to make it so the pizza was fighting back, if that wasn’t what the client wanted she could always remove that part later, but it would be harder to make it so the pizza was fighting back later if she cut out the material required to make it now and the client actually wanted it that way. Leni also wondered what kind of pizza they wanted to be fighting. Cheese was a safe choice to make because it was a simple design that she could easily add more to later if they wanted the pizza to have mushrooms or pepperoni or something. She wouldn’t finish this sculpture today, but she would get as far as she could before moving it into the garage to protect it from rain and stuff.

While carving and sanding down the piece, her mind wandered to her true passion. Sure fashion and wood carving were fun, and she loved them, but they weren’t what gave meaning to her life. Her real passion was her family. There was nothing Leni loved more than her family. They were all totes amazing and different than anyone else Leni had ever met. They also treated her better than anyone else. Leni didn’t know why but every time she met someone new they would start out treating her like anyone else, but as they got to know her more they would rapidly start treating her like glass, or like she couldn’t take care of herself. It made her frustrated and angry, and everybody was like that. Everyone except her family and to a lesser extent, family friends. Though even family friends still treated her like there was something broken about her. It was sad, and it hurt. Her family though, they were precious to her. Each different and precious in their own way.

Lily was a sweetheart, she hadn’t decided on her passion yet, but Leni could already see how good she was going to be at whatever it was. She was bursting with creativity and intelligence.

Lisa was the smartest person Leni ever met. She didn’t know how anything Lisa did worked, all her explanations going over Leni's head, but Leni knew it was supposed to be impossible to do half the things Lisa had accomplished. None of that mattered though. Sure it made her more special, but what made her precious was that Lisa didn’t look down on her siblings for not being as smart as her.

Lola was a princess. She acted like a princess, and she deserved to be treated like a princess. She may act spoiled on occasion, but Leni knew that was only to hide how she really felt. If you really looked for it, you could and would find someone who was afraid of loosing what she had. Leni also liked that she could share her love of fashion with Lola.

Lana was the almost the exact opposite of Lola, but if Lola was a princess, then Lana was a mud princess. She could build a car if she wanted to. Leni could change the gas. She was so alive and energetic though. Leni couldn’t help but smile every time she thought of Lana.

Lucy was the darkest of the Loud siblings, but Leni could still see how happy Lucy was. She was at home in the family, which sounded obvious, but Leni knew how hard it was for people like Lucy to fit in. Lucy was a master with words, and it made Leni's head spin just thinking of her poems.

Lincoln, her only brother, held a special place in her heart. She wouldn’t say she loved him more than she loved any of her other siblings, but her love for him was special and different. He was her precious Lincoln, her cherished Lincy, her treasured Linky, her priceless little brother. She truly adored him.

Lynn was good at every sport she had ever tried, and would probably be good at every sport she would ever try. She didn’t let her ability go to her head though. She was rough, but gentle when she needed to be and she was always willing to help a sibling in need.

Luan was magic. She made jokes and humor her business and while Leni didn’t always get the jokes, she loved the jokes she did get. She cherished them. Not them for what they were, because they often weren’t very funny. She cherished them for what they meant. They meant that Luan still respected her enough to keep telling her jokes despite all the jokes that flew over her head. They meant that Luan trusted her to understand as much as she trusted anyone else in the family.

Luna was spellbinding. Her music was the most enchanting thing Leni had ever heard. It wormed its way into her head and stayed there, supporting her and helping her through tough times with just the memory of them. It made her heart beat faster and sent a shiver up her spine, and she couldn’t pay attention to anything else when Luna really put her heart into her music.

Lori was her older sister. Her beloved protector against the shadows that haunted her night dreams and daymares, laying awake quaking in her sheets at the shapes in the night until Lori gathered her in her arms and soothed her shattered thoughts. Lori, more than their mom, was her mom. Mom… Leni loved her, but she could see the worry in her eyes when she looked at Leni. The fear that Leni wouldn’t be as good as the rest of her siblings, that Leni was broken somehow. Lori never looked at her that way.

The sculpture was starting to take form. It still needed a lot of work, but that was work for another day. Leni picked it up and carried it to the garage to store. Along the way she caught a faint tune in the air. It was music, and it was coming from inside the house, but it wasn’t Luna. Leni could tell. This music didn’t pause her in her tracks and force her to listen, but it was still very good. It sounded like a string instrument of some type, but not a guitar. Leni was curious. She followed the sound to the cracked open door of Luna and Luan's room and looking in she saw Lincoln playing his cello and Luna drawing something on a pad of paper. Leni couldn’t help it, she moved to behind the door so as not to be immediately visible and peaked through the crack at her siblings. She didn’t recognize the music Lincoln was playing, but after hearing him shift styles she realized it wasn’t just one song, he was seamlessly shifting between songs. Luna was drawing something that looked like a melty candle wax figure. Leni wondered what it was supposed to be. It went on for a while until Luna stopped drawing and Lincoln set aside his cello in response.

“Can I look at your drawing?” He asked Luna softly.

“It’s stupid and terrible, you won’t like it.” She replied.

“Can I please look at it?” he asked again.

Luna held out the pad nervously.

Lincoln studied it intently, his face melting into a soft smile, before shifting into a smirk.

“You know where this belongs? Right up on the fridge.”

Leni couldn’t help but giggle. Luckily she wasn’t heard because Lunas retort was louder.

“Eat a bag of bollocks, you bloody git!”

“Ha!” Lincoln laughed, “In all seriousness though, I really do like it.” Lincoln was sweet like that.

Luna looked away, “Yeah, well thanks.” Leni could see a dusting of a blush on Luna's cheeks.

They all jumped as the sound of the front door being bashed open rang through the house. Leni lost her balance in the process and fell forward, pushing the door open and collapsing into the room with Lincoln and Luna.

“Lincoln, I’m Home! You want to play a game?” Lynn's voice rang through the house.

“Leni?!” Lincoln and Luna jumped in surprise.

“Leni!? What about Leni?!” Lynns voice called from the first floor.

“Hi…” Leni trailed off from her awkward position on the floor. “I heard Lincoln playing and I was curious.”

“Hey, no harm done luv.” Luna reassured.

“I’ll talk to you in a bit Lynn, Leni just tripped and face planted into the floor!” Lincoln shouted down the stairs.

“Is she okay?” Lynn's voice was closer, she must have been coming up the steps. She sounded worried.

“I’m okay!” Leni put them at ease, yelling into the hall so Lynn could hear too.

“Okay good, so Lincoln, you want to play a game?” The sporty one asked getting back to what she really wanted to talk about.

Lincoln, the sweetheart that he was, hesitated and looked down at Leni. He held out a hand and helped her to her feet. He patted her shoulders down and looked her in the eye. A gesture that would have been insulting if anyone outside her family were to do it. As if she was going to break the moment they let her out of their sight. With Lincoln and the rest of her siblings though, it was a symbol of how much they cared about her. They were protective of her sure, but they also trusted her to take care of herself. It made her feel confident and safe.

“Sure, that sounds like fun, but maybe Leni and Luna want to play a game too?” he glanced at them in askance.

“Nah bro, I’m good staying here and just working on my jams.”

“I would love to Linky, let me just get my shoes on.” Leni answered sweetly.

**...**

Though she wasn’t as good at running around and jumping over stuff as Lincoln and Lynn, Leni still tried her best. Watching Lincoln dive over a fence and tag Lynns leg as he came out of the roll, was exciting to see, and it also meant that Leni had to run away from Lynn now. She turned and ran as fast as she could away from her sister, who quickly gave chase. Coming around a turn Leni saw a park bench and had an idea. She wasn’t very fast or agile, but the one thing she had over Lincoln and Lynn was that she was much stronger than them. Parkour tag wasn’t a game that was very advantageous to her, but maybe she could use what skills and abilities she did have to gain an advantage. With that thought, as she sped past the park bench Leni lifted one side of it and pulled it along behind her. It slowed her down a lot, but it was a wall between her and her much faster sister. She waited and as soon as she felt the added weight of Lynn jumping onto and attempting to climb over the bench to get to her, Leni dropped her side of the bench and kept running. The unexpected shift in speed and elevation caused Lynn to launch forward off the bench. She rolled to reduce damage from the fall and came to a stop, watching Leni pull ahead, now that Lynn wasn’t chasing her.

Leni looked over her shoulder to see Lynn gazing back the way they came, and slowed to a stop some distance away.

“Uh…” Lynn Uhhed, “Hey guys! I think we might want to stop our game for now!”

“Why what’s happening?” Lincoln came over and stood next to Lynn, “That’s uh. Yeah, we should probably go before some sort of official catches wind of this and makes us clean it up.”

Leni was curious now. Coming over to see what they were looking at, she saw that the bench had plowed an ugly trench into the ground, ripping grass up and scraping the pavement.

“I’m sorry!” Leni cried, feeling a sudden burst of shame.

“Hey, don’t worry about it.” Lincoln reassured.

“Yeah, parkour tag plays much more to our strengths than yours. It’s only natural you would look for a way to even the playing field.” Lynn comforted her.

“But I ruined our game.”

“It’s alright, we’ll just go home and find something to do there.” Her precious brother soothed her. “Come on. We can all hang out together, and maybe Lori or Luan will be home to play too.”

**...**

They arrived home in time for Lori to come home from work.

“Hey Lori! You want to hang out with us for a while?” Lincoln called, attracting their oldest siblings attention to their small group.

She turned towards their group fully and shrugged, “Sure. I was just planning on getting some work I brought home with me done, but hanging with you guys sounds more fun. What did you have in mind?”

Lincoln and Lynn glanced at each other, and at Leni, and came to the silent agreement to let Leni decide.

“Let’s see who else wants to play and then we can all play a board game together.” The wood sculptor determined.

They trouped up the steps and checked every bodies rooms to gather as many participants as possible. As it turns out, everyone was home so everyone participated. It was after all Lincolns birthday. If he wanted to play a board game with his entire family sans parents, who were they to say no. They ended up getting out Trivia Quest because it was the only game any of them could agree on. It was after all just a game about trivia, where knowing more would get you further. A game which on its surface favors the most intelligent, but really just favors those best at retaining information. In this case, they all had a subject within which they had memorized a lot of random tidbits of information. They set up the game in Leni and Loris room and gathered on the two beds. Lori was first, she flicked the spinner to determine what category her trivia question would be in, and it landed on politics.

“Okay Lori,” Lincoln said, picking up a trivia card, “What year was the US constitution written?”

“Uh… I know this one. I literally studied it in law school. seventeen, seventy-seven? Seventeen seventy-eight? Seventeen eighty-eight? Ah! It was seventeen eighty-seven.”

“Are you sure?” Lincoln probed.

“Absolutely.”

“Well, I’m sorry, but you’re right!” Lincoln announced.

“Ah” Lori let out a breath, “You Twerp, I thought I had it wrong for a second there.” Lori picked up her piece and moved it one space down the path.

They went around the circle, everyone getting a turn and the game continued around and around. They each got a turn to show off their knowledge in their area of expertise and their ignorance in everything else.

“Okay Lincoln, who wrote The Little Mermaid?”

“Han Christian Andersen.” He answered smugly.

“Lucy, Starry Night was painted by who?”

“Vincent van Gogh.” She drawled.

“Luna, what band released the song Ruby Tuesday in 1967?”

“Rolling Stones baby!” She cheered.

“Lana, the Alaskan Malamute is what type of animal?”

“Too easy. It’s a dog.” She answered.

“Lily, who played the iron giant in the movie of the same name?”

“Vin Diesel?” She almost asked.

“Lisa, Callisto is the moon orbiting which planet in our solar system?”

“A substandard question from a substandard game, Jupiter.”

“If you don’t want to play, why are you here?” Lincoln broke the game flow to ask.

“Do you think I have such disregard for your feelings? No, If you all insist on being here, I won’t abandon you.”

“Lola, Sri Lanka is surrounded by which ocean?”

“The Indian Ocean.” She replied with a too wide to be real smile, her eyes closed.

The ensuing silence made her open her eyes to see everyone looking at her, some quirking an eyebrow in askance.

“How am I supposed to become Miss Universal when I grow up if I don’t even know anything about the places I’ll go?” She explained.

Everyone stopped staring at her and continued the game, some of them shaking their heads.

“Lynn, in hockey, what is known as a hat trick?”

“Ha! Are you kidding, this is too easy. A hat trick is when you score three goals in a row.” Lynn guffawed.

“Luan, who’s credited with inventing the first mechanical computer?”

“I’ll just go ahead and explain myself before I answer this, so you don’t all stare at me. I have cameras all over the house to catch unintentional humor. I need a know things about computers to look through the video files, otherwise I would never get to see you all during all your GUI moments! Haha! Get it?”

“Ew! No. What?”

“It’s beca-“ Luan cut herself off, “Never mind, it wouldn’t be funny if I explained it. The guy credited with inventing the first mechanical computer was named Charles Babbage.”

“That was gross.” Lola sniffed.

“Leni, what is the Spanish word for a heated tortilla filled with cheese?”

“Quesadilla?” Leni answered with an upward lilt at the end as though she was asking a question.

The game went like that for a while, nobody falling far behind, but Lisa pulling well ahead. She was about to win in fact when-

“Kids! Get ready! It’s time to go to dinner!” Lynn Sr. called from the first floor.

They were forced to stop and put the game away, with much grumbling from Lisa who was clearly enjoying herself despite her regular complaints about the quality of the questions and the game in general. They all marched into the living room and carried on to gather in the front lawn around the cars in the drive way. They piled into Vanzilla the second, and Loris car to go to the buffet. The ride over was much less cramped with them all spread out over two cars, and they made it to the buffet in record time. The Loud parents paying for everyone. They congregated into two adjacent booths and got up to get food. Once they all had enough food to eat, plus an extra helping or two to secret away in tupperware from their moms big purse, that they would eat at home over the next day or two.

They talked and laughed and generally created a ruckus. They discussed their days and each others days. Lincoln, Lynn, and Leni told the story about their adventure in the park. They all talked about their favorite and least favorite parts of the Trivia Quest game, and they just generally had a good time. Through out the meal, Leni found herself being moved closer and closer to Lincoln, until she was sitting right next to him. So close their thighs were almost brushing. Leni felt the urge to hug him close to herself again, so she did. She wrapped one arm around him and pulled him tightly into her side. She held him like that until the end of dinner, and they all filed out of the restaurant. The night was over and Leni almost carried her Linky to the car to ride home together.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing Leni was actually a challenge. I didn’t think it would be, but there’s a way my interpretation of her has to act that perfectly balances her less intelligent tendencies with a sharper than expected mind. It’s like standing on a knifes edge.
> 
> Man I hope nobody get’s bored reading about the same day from so many different perspectives.
> 
> In case you’re wondering, during the repeated bathroom scene from each characters point of view. They do clean themselves thoroughly, unless I specify that they don’t. What I mean is Leni used soap to wash her body and face, I just didn’t specify that she did because it wasn’t something that was important to her. It wasn’t something she made note of. It her case it was purely a mechanical action. What I’m getting at is that I’m only describing the parts of their experiences that they personally made note of. So just assume they did everything, even if I don’t describe it, unless I specifically say they didn’t do one thing or another.
> 
> My computer keeps autocorrecting words I’m trying to spell wrong. I wonder if I can turn that off…
> 
> Yep, after a brief search through the menus, I was able the turn off the autocorrect function pretty easily.
> 
> God! I suck so hard at puns!
> 
> Maybe you would have a better time reading this if you listened to music while doing so. I don’t know. I’m not expecting you to have had a bad time, but I was listening to music while writing it, so there may be things hidden in the writing that can only be experienced through replicating the same circumstances.
> 
> Incidentally, the song My Life Would Suck Without You is a really terribly song to write to. Normally when I listen to music, it feels like liquid energy is coursing through my veins, and I can do anything. This song though… It wasn’t even like I am when not listening to music, which is like I have limited energy that I have to carefully allot to the activities I consider worth it. This song sucked all the energy from my body and I couldn’t even bring myself to turn it off. I think it induced depression in me for like three minutes.
> 
> That scene in the park with Leni, I think, perfectly exemplifies that she’s actually kind of smart, she just has several cognitive problems. Like if you didn’t have to worry about repercussions from the authorities for wrecking up a public park, dragging a bench behind you to use as a stalling tactic and shield against someone who’s chasing you and catching up would be a pretty intelligent plan.
> 
> I made up the game Trivia Quest because I don’t actually know the rules of Trivial Pursuit other than the most obvious ones.
> 
> I figured a game of Trivia Quest with the whole family minus the parents would be the most thematically appropriate choice for Lenis chapter. It fits because her passion is her family, so it makes sense that while hanging out with Lincoln is her main goal here, she also wants to spend time with the rest of the family. It also gives me a chance to show off her learning. She’s not a airhead, she’s just innocent and focused. It also fits that the Loud parents aren’t there, because she puts them in the same category as family friends. That is to say, people who want what they think is best for her, but don’t understand her as a person. There’s a level of separation between how she feels about her siblings versus how she feels about her parents.
> 
> I mentioned before that this takes place in an alternate timeline. So a lot of things are subtly different, a lot of things are the same, and a small selection of things are totally different. The Little Mermaid is one of those things that’s the same. Did Disney make it in this reality? It doesn’t matter, the tale is way older than the cartoon.
> 
> The real contest is called Miss Universe, but… It’s called Miss Universal here because I didn’t want too much to remain the same, but I also couldn’t think of any other name that meant roughly the same thing.
> 
> The GUI pun actually made me laugh, but that was less to do with the pun itself and more to do with the reaction to it.


	4. Timeline 4-1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ok Here’s Luna’s chapter. I’m again writing this thing directly after I finished the last chapter… So I don’t actually have much new stuff to say. This is the fourth chapter and the fourth timeline. I have a cat…

  
Luna woke in the same way she went to sleep, listening to music. The pounding beat of dub step waking her up, contrasting with the sweet refrain of classical that put her to sleep. Luna didn’t discriminate with music, she loved it all. Granted, there were types of music she fancied over others, but as long the song in question wasn’t a bloody shambles, she couldn’t dislike it. Sitting up, she nodded her head to the music and pulled the headphones, playing the music she used as a combination sleep aid and alarm clock, off her head. She looked over the side of her bunk to see that Luan had already woken up and left, not an unusual event. Luan was a pretty light sleeper and tended to wake up much earlier than most. There were times when she would sleep in, such as after coming home after a late night show performing at a comedy club, or after a really long and busy day. Most of he time though she was one of the first to wake up in the house. She reached down beside herself to turn the music player off, climbed out from under the covers, and jumped to the floor beside the bunks, in the center of the room.

Luna took a deep breath, expanding her lungs to their maximum capacity and slowly letting the air pass back out from between her lips as she exhaled. Turning to the door, she left to go wait in the inevitable line for the bog, as she had to spend and penny. Languidly coming to a stop to the rear of Leni, Lynn, and Lori, in that order. None of them spoke with her; either too tired, Leni looked asleep on her feet, or to busy, Lori seemed to be thoroughly distracted by the thought of actually getting to use the washroom, not that Luna could blame her; but that was okay.

The door opened and Lori slid past Lana, who pranced out like she was dancing ballet, and the entire line lurched forward. Luna stood in place a feeling nagging at the back of her mind that there was something important about today. She was distracted from her thoughts by Lincoln coming to stop behind her.

“Hey bro.” She greeted her favorite albino.

“Hey Luna.” He returned.

“There’s something about today…” She trailed off. Looking at Lincoln, she was suddenly certain that whatever was important about the day had to do with her brother. She still couldn’t pinpoint exactly what it was though. She shrugged her shoulders. She would probably think of it later, or someone would remind her of what it was. “Eh, I’ll remember when I’m more awake.” She concluded.

The door to the loo swung wide and Lori, dressed in a suit jacket, and pajama pants strode out.

“Happy birthday Lincoln. I’ll see you when I get off work later!” She said, striding purposefully towards her room.

“Ah man luv! How could I fo’get?!” She exclaimed, slipping into the British accent she spent so much time working on and perfecting in her younger years that she now slipped back and forth in and out of it without any conscious effort on her part. “Hows it feel to be seventeen Link?”

They stepped up to fill the space left behind by the line moving as Lynn made her way through the door to the john.

“Feels pretty good. One year older, and one year wiser.”

“Also one year closer to the sweet embrace of death.”

“HOLY!” Lincoln and Luna startled, having not noticed Lucy come up in line until she spoke.

“Nobody notices me, sigh.” Lucy muttered.

“Don’t scare a bird like that mate. You almost gave me a bloody heart attack.” Luna heaved for breath.

“You know, you’d think we would be used to this by now. Sorry for not noticing you Lucy.” Lincoln apologized.

“It’s fine. You have been better about that in the past than most of our siblings.” Lucy accepted.

“Yeah, I was just distracted by my conversation with Luna I guess. Speaking of which.” He pointed ahead as the door opened and Lynn stepped out into the hall. Luna stepping forward as Leni passed her sporty sister on the way into the lav.

“Time for your birthday punches little bro.” Lynn came upon Lincoln and cocked her fist back.

Lincoln cringed. Unwilling to take a punch, seemingly also unwilling to run away.

“Ha! Two for flinching!” The sporty Loud made good on her promise by punching her brother twice on the same spot on his arm, walking away with a spring in her step while Lincoln rubbed the sore spot.

“You have to stop flinching bro, you know what happens when you do.” Luna idly commented.

“Yeah, I know, I know.” He blew out a breath. “Speaking of that, do I actually know she’ll only punch me once if I don’t flinch?”

“You do now.” Lucy re-entered the conversation.

“Huh?”

“I learned a long time ago that if I stopped flinching she would only punch me once. She eventually stopped punching me altogether. I think it got boring for her.”

“She punched you too Luce?” Their brother asked.

Lucy simply nodded and went silent again.

“You got anything planned for your birthday?” Luna quizzed, “I think Mom and Dad were planning on taking us all out for dinner.”

Lincoln opened his mouth to answer, but was interrupted as the door swept open and Leni skipped out and up to him.

“Hold that thought.” Luna said, stepping into the bathroom and closing the door.

She nodded her head to a tune only she could hear and tapped her foot against the tile floor while she squeezed some paste onto the bristles of her brush. There was a beat to everything if you just listened for it. It was how she got through the day. It was for she understood the world. The filter through which she observed everything around her was that of a musician through and through. Drag the bristles across her teeth once, twice, three times, and click her tongue behind her teeth twice between each stroke. That was how you found the rhythm in an activity as seemingly mundane as brushing your teeth. She spit the used paste into the sink and looked at herself in the mirror, her eyes half lidded and a soft smile resting firmly upon her lips. She turned to the shower and turned it on, unbuttoning her shirt one button at a time all the way down while she listened to the rapid fire water drops plinking off the porcelain. It sounded like rain on shingles. She unhooked her bra, let it drop and slid her sweat pants and panties down her legs to step out of the pool of cloth they made on the tiled floor. She checked the water temperature with her hand to make sure it was hot enough and stepped into the spray.

Her thoughts drifted back to her best mate, Lincoln. No offense meant to her mates Chunk and Sam, but they just couldn’t compete with Lincoln. They may not have had the best of relationships in the past. Luna having done some things she regretted before. Prominently, that time she and the rest of the family kicked him out when they thought he was bad luck. She felt like an real arse when she thought about that. Bad luck or not, you don’t kick a family member out of the house to fend for themselves. What if something had happened to him? The thought was enough for a faint tinge of guilt to well up in her gut even after all these years. In more recent years, there was that time he accidentally broke her guitar and she used it to guilt him into paying for everything for her until he spent all his savings and was totally broke. In her defense, she hadn’t realized exactly how much money he had spent for her until she found out how much he saved up. Her ax was only worth a couple hundred dollars. By the time Lincoln spent the last dollar of his savings, he had spent over a thousand. Money collected through various jobs he had over the years. She still felt like a bleeding git though. If she really wanted him to make it up to her, she should have just had him buy her a new one. Instead she drained him dry. Deep down, she knew why she did it though. As much as she was angry at him for breaking her stuff, and as much as she wanted to punish him for that, she just wanted to hang out with him even more. A seemingly silly thing to desire of her brother, but at the time Lincoln had been drifting away from her. He was focusing on fixing his relationship with Ronnie Anne, they having drifted apart more and more after she moved away. With all his attention directed at his girlfriend, he was paying less attention to his sisters. Something that all his sisters noticed were unhappy about, but Luna was the only one who gained the opportunity to attract his attention back. She just cocked it up. She took advantage of his good nature and she couldn’t help feel responsible for how Lincoln and Ronnies relationship failed. Maybe it would have failed anyway, but she couldn’t know that. As gutted as she felt about the whole thing, she couldn’t regret the end result though. Without Ronnie Anne in his life as much, he started spending significantly more time with his sisters, and after Luna apologized for making him spend his savings they became even better friends than they were before. Better than Chunk, who was nice but didn’t spend time with her outside of her various concerts and performances. Better than Sam who wasn’t gay or bisexual as it turned out, not that that should have influenced their potential friendship, but there almost always existed awkward feelings between those who were no longer in a relationship or a similar situation.

She shook her head to dispel her thoughts and turned off the spray. Stepping out, she grabbed a towel and wrapped it around her middle. She put the seat down on the toilet and sat down, tapping her palms against her knees and bobbing her head to the beat. A good thing about having short hair was that she didn’t have to wrap a towel around her head to dry it off like her sisters did. She could just fling her head from side to side to rid herself of the worst of the moisture and let her hair air dry. Once the towel around her middle dried her enough, she got up, put her clothing on and left the room, passing Lincoln on her way out. She looked back in time to see the bog door close, and continued on her way to her room. Dressing in a tight black pleather jacket that pleasantly hugged her body, a purple long sleeve shirt, a plaid skirt and stockings, and some black and purple combat boots.

She tread from her room and down the stairs. She saw Luan and Leni standing side by side in front of the blender as Leni made what was probably a smoothie for their clownish sister. She saw the little twin dudes pulling french toast sticks out of the freezer, and Lily eating a bowl of sugar snaps. Nodding to herself, Luna grasped the freezer before the twins could close it and reached in for a bagel. Closing the freezer door herself, she tossed the bagel into the microwave and hit the defrost button, setting herself to wait until it was warm enough for her to toast it. She pulled clotted cream, something she bought one time due to her minor admitted obsession with Britain and continued to get because it was actually really good, and strawberry jam out of the fridge. Snatching the defrosted bagel from the microwave, she popped the no longer frozen together halves of the bagel into the two slots of the toaster, set it for medium, pushed down the plunger, and leaned her back against the counter to wait.

The toaster timer chimed, prompting Luna to turn and gather the still hot bagel halves, along with the clotted cream and strawberry jam. Grabbing a chair by the back, she twirled it around on one leg, spinning it and letting go so it skid across the floor to stop next to the table and facing the stairs. Sitting down, she set about making herself a clotted cream and strawberry jam, toasted bagel, breakfast sandwich. Bringing the completed sandwich in for a bite, she looked up in time to see Lincoln coming down the stairs from his shower. He stopped and scanned the room.

Behind him Lori came down dressed for the day. She made a bee line for Leni's smoothie station and grabbed a recently poured glass before Lynn could get to it. Making her way out the door and to her car, pulling out of the driveway while Leni, Lynn, and Lincoln shared the rest of the smoothie between three glasses.

“So son, you planning anything today?” Their dad asked, as he came into the room.

“Well.” The president in name began, everyone's attentions drawn to him by their fathers question, “I still have school today, which is okay I suppose. I’ve been working on a picture in art class that I was hoping to get done today. After that I suppose I’ll hang out with Clyde for an hour or two. Then I guess I’ll come home and spend time with my sisters.”

“Using your birthday to hang out with ten girls at once? That’s Smoothie Linc” Luan said, holding up her almost finished drink, “Haha, Get it?”

Her joke was met with a chorus of groans.

“Seriously though, you shouldn’t feel obligated to spend your birthday with us.” Their joking sister remarked.

“I don’t feel obligated. You think I don’t like spending time with you? Outside of Clyde and maybe Ronnie Anne, you guys are some of my best friends.” Lincoln earnestly responded.

There was a wave of Awww’s and other noises of appreciation from his sisters. Knowing that made Luna feel… Nice. Though Luna felt Lincoln to be one of her best friends, if not the best, Luna still felt a warm feeling pool in her at hearing that he felt the same.

“That’s sweet dude.” Luna sighed, “Luckily for you I don’t have any classes at the college today. So I’ll see you in the afternoon.”

“You don’t have any classes today?” Lynn looked almost affronted, “I have.” She paused “Math class…” she finished with a hiss.

“Come now. Numbers are hardly as onerous as you’re making them out to be. Calculations are simple matters of logic.” Lisa commented from her place at the table, drawing her competitive sisters aggro.

“That’s easy for you to say Miss four college masteries.” Their sporty sister retorted.

“I have five, but I suspect I shouldn’t be too hard on you if you’re really as bad with simple equations as you profess.” Lisa jabbed.

“Hey!”

“Don’t fight. It’s Linky’s birthday and think about what he just told us. My feelings go all fuzzy just thinking about it.” Leni reprimanded her two fighting sisters.

Lincoln shifted on the spot, his face dusted faintly red.

“Well, I’ll see you guys after school.” He turned by ascending the stairs, passing Lucy on the way. His shoulders were slightly tense and Luna got the feeling the situation made him uncomfortable. What he said was sweet and Luna appreciated it, but he really should have known it would result in this kind of thing.

He came back down the stairs, his backpack slung over one shoulder and waved goodbye to them as he left the house. Luna waved back, but she was pretty sure he didn’t notice.

**...**

Looking out the window, Luna could see Leni carving a block of wood into a rough human shape, along with something else. She idly wondered what Leni was making. It wasn’t really that important that she know. She turned her attention back to her writing. She wasn’t a master word smith like Lucy, or a narrative genius like Lincoln, but Luna was proud of her ability to craft song lyrics to fit the feeling she was trying to convey. In years past, Luna made songs for Lincoln on his birthday. She was had been tempted to do that this year too, but something felt wrong with that. It felt like not enough to show how much she truly appreciated him. Songs were magic. There were the very fabric of her reality and crafting them was her passion, but what was the point of a song that was only played once and never listened to again. There was beauty in the fleeting, and Luna could imagine a scenario in which she would create a song to thoroughly humiliate someone. That song would only get played the once, but this situation wasn’t even remotely similar to that hypothetical. It was cute to write, sing, and play a customized birthday song just for him, but the warm fuzzies of familial appreciation would fade in time and things would be back to normal in less than a week or two. With repeat listenings the feeling might last longer, but nobody listens to birthday songs when it’s not their birthday. If Luna wanted to truly show her appreciation for him as a brother, as a person, and as a friend, she would have to create a song for him that he would want to keep listening to over and over again. Something he could listen to when happy, sad, angry, and bored. She would have to write a song to become the theme song for his existence. Writing a song like that was a undertaking, because how could she possibly write a song that completely encompassed all that her brother was. The answer was that she couldn’t. That wasn’t possible. She could however, write a song that encompassed all that her brother was to HER. Still a difficult undertaking, but not impossible. Her hesitance though, had cost her. It was his birthday today, and she wasn’t finished writing it. She would have to present it to him later… And maybe do something extra to make up for the delay.

Now though, she was feeling a bit peckish. She made her way down to the kitchen to round up some grub for a snack.

“Lincoln should be home soon” She thought, glancing at the wall clock. His school had been out for several hours. She would wait for him down in the kitchen, she decided. It wasn’t like she needed to be in her room to work on song lyrics.

She jogged up the steps, grabbed her writing pad, and made her way back to the kitchen table. Putting pencil to paper she wrote lyrics and crossed them out, and wrote new lyrics that worked better than the old. It wasn’t long before she heard the knob rattle on the door. She quickly stuffed the writing pad into a pocket and exited into the hall in time for the door to open and admit her best brother.

“Little Bro! I hope you had a blinding day.”

“It was pretty good, but I’m actually glad to be home now. I hope you have time for me.”

“Of course, I always have time for my favorite brother.” He was, of course, her only brother, but that didn’t make her statement any less true.

Moving up the stairs they hoofed it to her room, stopping on the way at Lincolns room to grab a drawing pad and some pencils. This was just how they hung out with each other, it was how all the siblings hung out with each other. They would either all do the thing that one of them loved, or they would all do their own thing and just bask in each others company. In this case Luna danced and grooved to her own beat and rhythm. She played rock and reggae, country and swing, rap and blues. She rocked her head from side to side and bent at the waist while kicking one foot up off her other and hopped forward. The dance move didn’t even make sense for what music she was playing, but she didn’t care, she was having too much fun. She felt sweat drip down her face and from her hair. She felt the sweat explode off when she turned suddenly on one leg and stomped the floor around her with her other foot. She heard the walls reverberate and the window clatter in its frame. She felt joy bubble through her body, climbing up until her heart was swimming in it, and it beat a thousand times a second. She might be having a heart attack if this didn’t feel so good. Her face stretched into beaming smile that reached from ear to ear. Perspiration flew into the air as she through her head back and grinned at the ceiling. She swung her arm around like a windmill and brought it down to strum every string, and brought it back up to the top, over and over. Looking down at Lincoln she could see his head bobbing to the music, as his hand worked furiously over his drawing pad. He glanced up at her and their eyes met for just a moment. In the excitement of the moment, it was hard to tell, but Luna thought her heart may have just kicked the speed of its rhythm up a notch. He smiled at her and went back to his work. Lunas face was hot, probably from exertion, but… It had never been this hot before. She shook her head, and refocused on her little bro as he set aside his pad. She put her guitar down and moved over to his side. Sitting down next to him, brushing shoulders with him. She looked at what he had drawn.

Her heart caught in her throat. She could feel it beating and she struggled to swallow around it. Luna had known Lincoln was good at drawing, but knowing and seeing were two different things. She’d seen drawings of his in the past, but… This one was different. This one was for her. It was a black and white picture of her playing her guitar, her drawn counterparts arm raised in the air as if she was about to bring it down and strum across all the strings. Black lightning shattered the air as it cracked off her guitar. The air swirled around her and caught her hair in a tornado breeze, while paster rained from the ceiling and sound waves shook the walls. This was. This was bleeding brill. No, that wasn’t good enough to describe it. As she searched for the right words she felt her mouth open and words tumble out.

“Lincoln, this is fucking ace.” She exhaled, a distinct rasp to her words.

“Here you draw for a while, I want to see what you come up with.” Lincoln caught her attention .

Luna took it apprehensively. Her breath catching for an entirely different reason. This wasn’t what she was good at. What if she messed up? What it nothing, she was going to mess up, and then… Luna didn’t know. The thought of it. Luna didn’t know why, but suddenly the thought that Lincoln might not like what she made, it hurt…

Luna shook her head. What was she worried about? This was Lincoln. Her Brother, her bro, her best mate. Even if her drawing was a bleeding shambles he would like it. If only because she was the one to make it.

“You know I’m not good at this kind of thing.” She cautioned, even having regained some of her confidence.

“I wasn’t always as good as I am now. I was a beginner once too, and you’ll never improve if you don’t try. Come on I’ll even provide background music with my cello. Maybe it’ll give you inspiration.”

“Yeah, ok, but only because it’s your birthday.” Luna picked up the pencil and Lincoln left to get his cello.

He came back, sat down, and Lincoln played. He played more calmly than Luna, but he still played anything that came to mind. It sounded classical for all of thirty seconds before switching smoothly to a cello version of Infinity streets song Forever, and after that he played Hall of the Mountain King. His bow dragging fluidly across the strings as he played. Playing Cello wasn’t his passion, just as drawing wasn’t Lunas, but Luna could tell he still enjoyed it.

Luna just listened to him for a minute, bobbing her head with the rhythm. She turned her attention to the pad and made a line. Making another, she decided to draw his cello first. If she was going to be good at drawing anything, it was going to be a musical instrument. She could do practically anything else with one, why not draw one? A reasonable assumption on her part, it turned out. The cello was recognizable as a cello. It wasn’t a master work, by any means, but Luna didn’t expect it to be. She expected it to be basically recognizable and it was. She set about drawing the music coming off the cello. This turned out to be less straight forward than the cello. Bugger, Lincoln made this look so easy. It wasn’t important she supposed. It was just kind of disappointing that her relative skill at drawing instruments didn’t necessarily extend to drawing music. She turned her attention to drawing her brother… and regretted it. As she got further and further into drawing him, she regretted it more and more. Maybe she could fix it if she made a line here? No that didn’t help. How about it she erased this part and redrew it? It looked even worse now! She should have just left the drawing as a cello and music. now it was ruined and she didn’t trust her drawing skill enough to bring it back. She stopped before she could make it any worse than it already was, and held the pad to her chest, barely daring to look up when the cello music stopped. Lincoln was standing in front of her, bent slightly at the waist to look into her eyes.

“Can I look at your drawing?” Lincoln asked her softly.

“It’s stupid and terrible, you won’t like it.” She was convinced of this.

“Can I please look at it?”

She held it out to him, allowing him to take it from her hands. What was she going to do? Burn it? It may have been a terrible drawing, but she wasn’t going to ruin Lincolns whole drawing pad just to save herself some embarrassment.

Lincoln looked at it calmly, but intently. His eyes sweeping back and forth across the page, and gentle smile set upon his lips, before her met her eyes and the smile transformed into a smirk.

“You know where this belongs? Right up on the fridge.”

“Eat a bag of bollocks you bloody git!” Though she knew he was joking, she still felt a measure of anger.

“Ha! Oh man.” Lincoln laughed, “In all seriousness though, I really do like it.”

Luna calmed down from her fleeting indignation “Yeah well, thanks.” She looked faintly red faced.

They both jumped slightly when the sound of the door being kicked open on the first floor rang through the house.

“Lincoln, I’m home! You wanna play a game!?” Lynns voice called out.

Lincoln looked at Luna.

“It was fun, unless you want to come play too?” He asked.

Though she was tempted to join him, she really didn’t want to run around outside, which is no doubt what would end up happening if she came along. She did want to spend more time with him, but she could do that later.

“No, I’m good.”

Lincoln nodded and strolled out of the room.

**...**

Luna unfortunately didn’t get to spend any more time with her favorite bro before it was time for dinner. They piled into Vanzilla the second, and Loris car to go to the buffet. The ride over was much less cramped with them all spread out over two cars, and they made it to the buffet in record time. The Loud parents paying for everyone. They congregated into two adjacent booths and got up to get food. Once they all had enough food to eat, plus an extra helping or two to secret away in tupperware from their moms big purse, that they would eat at home over the next day or two.

The all talked and made a ruckus, talking about their days and getting up to move around and get more food or move closer to whoever they were currently sharing a conversation with. Throughout the dinner Luna found herself getting up and being moved around and asked to move until she was, through no conscious effort on her own part, sitting directly beside Lincoln. She spent the rest of the meal there. Talking to him about anything and everything that came to mind. A blanket of warmth and happiness settling over her as she continued to converse with her little bro.

Dinner was over soon and they all poured out of the buffet and back into the cars. This time Luna made sure to snag a seat next to Lincoln.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A lot of this chapter is super almost exactly the same as the first chapter, because Luna is a more mellow person than the sisters who came before her. There wasn’t really any reason why Lincoln and Luna would have interacted differently, for the most part.
> 
> I actually had a list of British slang words and phrases open while writing this chapter.
> 
> When writing a Loud House story set after the show takes place, if you’re going to embrace cannon, you should include incidents of your own. If all the things in cannon happened in your story too, it’s not like the family is suddenly going to settle down in the intervening years. Other stuff if going to happen, just like all the drama didn’t stop in your family after the age of twelve.
> 
> For the song. Lunas song that she’s writing him in this timeline. In the other time lines she goes ahead with just writing him a birthday song again. I didn’t include it because as much as I love music, I’m actually very bad as writing songs, so I didn’t want to create a mangled mess of a song for the first chapters, that you would have to read over and over again. Especially because it would be a song that Luna was supposed to have written and there’s no way she would write something as terrible as what I would produce. So just assume she sings him his birthday song after the chapters end. I’m hoping that by the time the reveal of this timelines Lunas song becomes necessary, I’ll have gotten someone way better at writing songs to do it for me, or I’ll just have to find a real world song that fits and copy it here. I really hope I don’t have to do the latter.


	5. Timeline 5-1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I was sick for like a week. I originally planned to get all eleven chapters in this first batch knocked out in maybe two weeks, but that was a best case scenario estimate, and things rarely follow the best case scenario. I think it’s likely I’ll have them all done by the end of the month, but I make no promises… Not sure why I’m even typing this except that I want to. You know because nobodies going to read this until the information is irrelevant…

  
Luan opened her eyes and sat up in bed. She never really needed help waking up, being the naturally early riser that she was. Though if she were to get a clock, she would prefer it if it wasn’t an alarmed clock. She liked her clocks calm… Though maybe an jolly clock would be better. Ha ha.

“Thank goodness I sleep facing away from the door, it really helps with waking up on the Right side of the bed. Ha ha.” She chuckled softly at her own joke.

Looking at the top bunk, she took in the expected sight of Luna still asleep, her head nodding reflexively to whatever music she had playing through her headphones. Luan stretched, bending over backwards as far as she could, hearing her back crack several times. She straightened up, gathered up some clothes to change into and left the room.

Like was often the case, she was the first one up. It was nice because she didn’t have to wait for anyone else to use the bathroom. Padding down the carpeted hall, she swung the door open and closed behind her. She turned and waved at the hidden camera she had set up in the corner of the room. It was like she was saying hello to herself in the future. She put the cover down on the toilet and set her clothes on top. Stepping in front of the mirror she set about her morning routine. Not that she had much of a morning routine. She would brush her teeth, braces free thankfully. They had been gone for a while, but Luan still hated thinking about them. She would floss and use mouthwash. It was all very deliberate and mechanical. Having seen the bathroom habits and routines of all her other siblings, she almost wished she got the same kind of satisfaction out of the simple act of self maintenance.

She turned away from the mirror and placed one foot on the cuff of her other pants leg, stepping forward her pajama pants snaking down her leg as she drew it through… Snake pants… They were a trouser snake! Ha ha… Ew… Moving on. She stepped out of the other leg and slipped off her t-shirt. Luan slid her panties to the floor and undid her bra. Dropping it to the floor, she turned on the shower and waited for the water to get to her preferred temperature. The wait was usually longer for her than it was for anyone else in the family, owing to the fact that as the first one up the water heater had to warm up from an entire night of disuse. She held her hand under the fall of water until it was warm enough for her to step in. Feeling the water cascade in sheets down her back and trickle through her hair, she turned her face up into the stream and held it there, water splashing off and running down. Tilting her head back down, she blinked several times to get the excess liquid out of her eyes, let out a sigh, and set about washing herself. She lathered shampoo between her palms and ran her fingers through her hair. She stepped forward and tilted her head back up, so the stream hit just where her hairline started, letting the water sluice through her hair and rinse the shampoo out. She repeated the process with conditioner, and gathered up some face wash to scrub into her cheeks and forehead. She stepped back and let the flow cleanse her.

Shutting off the rush of water, she let out another sigh and stepped out of the tub. Luan cloaked her middle with a towel and swaddled her hair with another. She cracked the window open to let out the steam and help her dry faster, and stood in the center of the washroom breathing in the early morning air. Breath in. Breath out. Slowly fill her lungs with the crisp air, letting the refreshing oxygen fill her up completely, she held it for a second and then let it out.

She was jarred from her hiatus, by the sound of someone knocking on the door.

“Are you almost done in there? I really need to pee.” Lily’s voice was muffled by the door.

“Hold on a second, I gotta clean up. It’s like there was a Potty in here. Ha ha, get it?”

“No…” Lily trailed off.

“Well never mind. Give me a second to dry off and I’ll come out.”

Luan unfurled the towel around her middle and pulled the towel drying her hair. She stood by the window and opened it completely, letting the air dry her hair directly for a minute or two. Then she closed the window and got dressed. She opened the door to Lily, who rushed past her and slammed the door closed, and walked past the line that had formed to the stairs. Taking the steps one at a time until she neared the bottom and jumped the last three steps.

Nobody else was down yet, leaving Luan to herself. She could have easily made something for herself, but she preferred not to if she could help it. She wasn’t a terrible cook, but she also wasn’t the best in the family. So as long as she didn’t have anywhere pressing to be, and she didn’t today, she would usually wait for someone else to come down and start making something. Then she would sidle over and request some for herself, from who ever was doing the making. It was usually Leni, making smoothies, her skill at which was amazing. It was occasionally Lincoln, who made fantastic waffles and pancakes. On rare occasions it was Lynn, who made pretty good omelets.

She made a few popping sounds with her mouth and puttered around the living room, straightening out couch cushions that would be messed up in less than an hour. She turned on the news for some background noise and ran through her newest comedy routine in her head. Contrary to what her siblings might have thought, she didn’t just do puns. She may have thought they were the highest form of comedy, but she found that most people shared her siblings blatantly incorrect opinion that puns just weren’t funny. It was almost enough to make her despair. She kept her chin up and her head high though, eventually she would find an audience with actual taste.

She needed to play to the tastes of the crowd to be successful, no matter how terrible those tastes were. With that in mind, her routine was usually a magic comedy show. Something that was harder to pull off than just a magic show or a comedy show alone, because she had to ensure that the magic part was properly magical, and ensure that the comedy part was actually funny. She was up to the challenge though. She would do coin magic that superficially had to do with math, while commenting on the banking system and her personal, relatable, and hilariously conveyed troubles with them. She would do a clothes changing routine, where she would change into ridiculous historical outfits while telling stories about stupid events from history. She would leave the audience laughing, wondering how she changed outfits so fast, and with more knowledge of the past than they had ever acquired in school.

Luan turned the tv off when she noticed Lily skipping down the stairs. Her youngest sister ran over to Luan, her arms flailing behind her as she ran.

“Can you help me get down the Sugar Snaps?” Lily asked.

Setting aside her thoughts on her routine, Luan followed her sister over to the kitchen area. She stopped in front of the cabinet over the counter, too high for Lily to reach without climbing onto the counter itself, which she wasn’t allowed to do. The comedian opened the cabinet door and reached in to grab her sisters preferred brand of cereal. Setting the box on the table, Luan continued on to grab a bowl and some milk from the fridge. Setting those on the table as well, she hovered just long enough to ensure that Lily didn’t make a huge mess by spilling the milk on the floor.

Lisa stepped around the corner and through the archway separating the kitchen from the living area.

“Greetings siblings.” She paused in the archway to address them.

Entering the room with careful and deliberate strides, Lisa made her way over to the cabinets under the counter and pulled out a few bags of various powders. She placed them on the table along with a scale pulled from the same place. She strode over to the fridge and gathered up some kind of oil. Luan wasn’t sure what kind it was, though she did know that it was something that Lisa made herself. Supposedly it combined the best qualities of all other oils. Lisa brought the oil over to her claimed area of the table, and started putting together her typical morning fare. Luan wasn’t particularly interested in it. She had tried it before, and it tasted kind of like stale bread. Lisa assured her it was the healthiest thing she would ever eat, but what was the point of eating healthily if you were miserable. Lisa didn’t mind the taste apparently, but Luan didn’t know how she could stand it.

Luan was left to continue waiting until someone with some kind of actual cooking ability came down, and hopefully agreed to feed her. The next two to come down were Lola and Lana, the pair never straying far from each other despite their majorly differing personalities. They came in shoving at each other, as they usually were. Luan didn’t even think they were fighting, by this point it was probably force of habit more than anything that kept them pushing at each other. Though doing so actually seemed to result in fights more often then anything else did. Case in point here. Lola tripped Lana and the two started a small brawl in the middle of the kitchen. Nothing serious. They were mostly just wrestling, rolling around on the floor, and maybe pulling each others hair once in a while. This wasn’t one of their bad fights, it was more like… Bonding. That was the best way Luan could describe it, though she guessed she didn’t really know the specific details of their relationship with each other and how it worked. She would probably never find out either, unless Lisa decided to create a clone of her that had a completely opposing personality.

The next to round the corner and access the kitchen was Lynn, who sauntered over to one of the cabinets over the counter and pulled out a couple protein bars. She stripped the wrapper off one, dropping it in the trash, and took a bite from the bar. She made her way over to wall to the side of the archway and leaned against it, one leg crossed over the other as she slowly chewed and savored her protein bar. Chocolate flavored, it looked like. It was almost tempting enough for Luan to request one as well, but she didn’t because not only would it probably not be as satisfying as she was imagining, Lynn would also definitely say no.

The twins stopped fighting and seemed to come to a truce of sorts, making their way over to the fridge and opening the freezer to rummage around inside, just as Leni stepped into the archway and paused. She scanned the room, nodded to herself, and moved over to the fridge herself. She stopped the twins from closing it when they retreated with their prize, a box of french toast sticks. She reached in and grabbed bags of frozen fruit, closed the freezer and opened the fridge to pull out liquids. She made her way past the twins who were thawing out the french toast sticks in the microwave. She set up a smoothie station and picked up a bag of mangos. This was what Luan had been waiting for this entire time. Not Leni specifically, but it was Leni more often than it was anyone else so Luan wasn’t necessarily surprised.

Luan sidled up, “Do you take requests. I would find a banana smoothie appealing. Haha, get it?” Luan hoped Leni got it. She didn’t think Leni was dumb, but a lot of things flew over her head. Still, it delighted her when she did get them.

Leni's head tilted slightly in way Luan recognized as a position of thought, “Like because a banana has a peel?”

“Hey, yeah, good job.” Luan congratulated her. Again, Luan didn’t think Leni was stupid, but she did recognize the cognitive problems Leni did suffer from. Of course having problems thinking quickly wasn’t the same thing as being dumb. Neither was having trouble making connections between different lines of thought dumb. Leni used to be much worse at those things, and the fact that she had improved so much… Well Luan thought that made Leni pretty smart in her own way.

Leni turned back to the blender and picked up a bag of mangos, stopping when Luan waved to get her attention again.

“I wasn’t just telling a joke, I actually do want a banana smoothie.” Smart in her own way, Leni might have been, some things still flew over her head unless you made it obvious.

“Oh”, Leni set the bag of mangos back down and lifted the frozen bananas and the yogurt. She scooped a few large spoonfuls of yogurt into the blender, she put in an entire frozen banana and a caps worth of vanilla extract. She poured a little milk. She put on the lid and turned on the blender. There was a short struggle as the blades fought to liquify an entire frozen banana, but things smoothed out soon enough and Leni tipped the smoothie into a glass.

Luan gave a thumbs up in thanks, and walked away. She couldn’t say anything because she was drawing a mouthful of smoothie from the glass. Returning to her position near the entrance to the kitchen, she had a wide enough view to see the twins pulling their french toast sticks out of the toaster, and running to the refrigerator to pull out syrup, butter, and jam. Taking a gulp from her glass, she could see Leni rinsing the blender pitcher out and Lynn making her way over, chewing on her second protein bar. She saw Lily happily pouring herself another bowl of Sugar Snaps. Seeing something out of the corner of her eye, she turned her head to see Lincoln making his way down the steps. He stopped in the doorway and surveyed the scene. He took everything in completely. Leni finished the newest batch of smoothie and Lori quick stepped down the stairs from behind Lincoln. Passing him by, Lori paced into the kitchen and up the smoothie stand, grabbing a glass that Leni had just poured before Lynn could get it herself, and taking a gulp of it as she fast walked out the door to her car. Luan could hear the engine as Lori pulled out of the driveway. Lincoln walked over to the smoothie station, and Leni split the remaining smoothie between three glasses for herself, Lynn, and Lincoln.

“So son, you planning anything today?” Their dad asked, as he came into the room.

“Well.” The president in name began, everyone's attentions drawn to him by their fathers question, “I still have school today, which is okay I suppose. I’ve been working on a picture in art class that I was hoping to get done today. After that I suppose I’ll hang out with Clyde for an hour or two. Then I guess I’ll come home and spend time with my sisters.”

“Using your birthday to hang out with ten girls at once? That’s Smoothie Linc” Luan said, holding up her almost finished drink, “Haha, Get it?”

Her joke was met with a chorus of groans. The heathens.

“Seriously though, you shouldn’t feel obligated to spend your birthday with us.” Luan remarked.

“I don’t feel obligated. You think I don’t like spending time with you? Outside of Clyde and maybe Ronnie Anne, you guys are some of my best friends.” Lincoln earnestly responded.

There was a wave of Awww’s and other noises of appreciation from his sisters. A warm glow settled in Luan when she heard that… Maybe he would want to listen to her new routine when they were both back from school.

“That’s sweet dude.” Luna sighed, “Luckily for you I don’t have any classes at the college today. So I’ll see you in the afternoon.”

“You don’t have any classes today?” Lynn looked almost affronted, “I have.” She paused “Math class…” she finished with a hiss.

“Come now. Numbers are hardly as onerous as you’re making them out to be. Calculations are simple matters of logic.” Lisa commented from her place at the table.

“That’s easy for you to say Miss four college masteries.” Their sporty sister retorted.

“I have five, but I suspect I shouldn’t be too hard on you if you’re really as bad with simple equations as you profess.” Lisa jabbed.

“Hey!”

“Don’t fight. It’s Linky’s birthday, and think about what he just told us. My feelings go all fuzzy just thinking about it.” Leni reprimanded her two fighting sisters.

Huh, that was interesting. It looked like Luan wasn’t the only person to be hit in the feels by their shared brothers claim. Of course if anyone else was to feel that same way Luan did, she expected it to be Leni… Or maybe Luna.

“Well, I’ll see you guys after school.” Lincoln abruptly stated, bringing attention back to him. He had a light pink tinge to his cheeks from what Luan could tell. He ascended the stairs, Lucy coming into the kitchen just after he left. He came back down with his backpack slung over his shoulder and left the house, waving to them over his shoulder.

It actually was about time for everyone to get cleaned up and go, even if Lincoln left a little early, so Luan didn’t pay much attention to the rest of the family while she cleaned up, though she noticed a slightly grumpier than usual Lucy eating a bowl of Sugar Snaps. Luan cleaned out her glass and put it in the dishwasher, sidestepping the twins as they made their way over to the sink themselves. She made her way leisurely up the steps to her room. She actually had two classes today, mechanical engineering and computer classes. Luckily they were both pretty close to each other in the morning, so she would probably be home before Lincoln got home himself.

**...**

One might ask why Luan Loud, the girl well on her way to becoming a professional comedian, would take mechanical engineering and computer classes. A reasonable question to be sure, if it was ever actually asked. If it was asked, Luan would say it wasn’t complicated. After so many years of working with computers for her comedy videos and website, she actually was interested in learning more. Computers weren’t her passion, not like comedy, but she was allowed to have more than one hobby, and working with something for a long time tends to imbue an interest in it.

As for mechanical engineering? That one was a little bit more straight forward. She took it simply because knowing how things worked mechanically, and being able to build those things, helped her come up with new magic tricks and props. An interesting prop she worked out from her classes was an extendable pencil. It wasn’t a real pencil of course, but it allowed her to create the effect of putting length back onto a shortened one. She would take a pencil that had been sharpened down to the half way point, cover it with a hand and switch it out for her fake pencil while nobody could see it. Then she would grab both ends of the fake pencil, and pull them apart to allow some extra length, that was hidden inside the two hollow sides, to snap into place. She would briefly show off the extended prop without letting it leave her hand. After showing it off for a second, she would cover and collapse it while switching it out again for a real full length pencil, which she would hand to her audience for them to keep. Knowing how things worked on a mechanical level just helped. It was the same reason she took chemistry, which she didn’t have that day.

As she sat through her classes that day her mind wandered. They were learning the principles of truncated code. When you tried to hold a longer piece of code in something that couldn’t contain it all, the extra code would be cut off and you would end up with a program that was completely broken because it was missing key pieces.

They were explaining the principle that the outer rim of a gear always moves faster than the middle, because to make a full rotation the middle only has to cross a small distance, while the outer rim must cover a lot more ground to make the same full rotation. Luan was listening. It’s not like she had her head completely in the clouds, but she wasn’t paying her full attention to the classes. It didn’t matter particularly, situations like this were exactly why she brought a recorder, so she could listen to them again later in case she missed anything the first time through.

Her mind drifted to other things. Her comedy routine, her family, her brother. It was Lincolns birthday today. In the past she would have played a prank on him or for him as a birthday present. In the past… She’d stopped doing that. She hadn’t stopped playing pranks completely, but… They weren’t as mean spirited as before. April fools day used to be her favorite holiday. It stopped being so a few years previous. She’d, well, she wouldn’t say she went too far, but she only wouldn’t say that because she knew the truth that she had been going too far for a long time. What kind of person scared their father so thoroughly that he was willing to bankrupt himself to stay on their good side? What kind of person tortured their brother specifically for having the forethought required to avoid a more general form of torture? She did apparently. A blanket of emotional numbness settled over her just thinking about it.

Several years previous she set up a trap for the whole family. It was to be her masterpiece. She would turn her entire family against each other. They would be too busy fighting each other to notice the jaws of her favorite holiday closing around them. She started it March thirty-first, because who would expect her to start her prank before April even started? It was perfect. A prank was, at its purest, a subversion of expectations for the purpose of comedy… Things got out of hand, and she came to realize that just because nobody had ever been injured by her pranks before, didn’t mean they weren’t dangerous. It was actually a miracle that nobody had ever gotten seriously hurt by any of her previous pranks. Things started off perfectly. She’d managed to get everyone so thoroughly distracted fighting each other that they hadn’t noticed her setting up her traps. It wasn’t hard. The family had a tendency to fight anyway. Luan was pretty sure things only ever got done because Lincoln tended to act as a peace keeper. Of course she accounted for that and made sure to focus the majority of everyone's ire on him. Nobody would listen to him if they were too busy being mad at him. Of course everyone realized their mistake when April first actually rolled around, but the realization didn’t erase all the ill feelings. They didn’t help each other. A prank meant to play on Leni's gullibility got her lost in an unfamiliar part of Royal Woods for days. A prank meant to take advantage of Lynn's recklessness gave her a concussion. A prank meant to take advantage of Lincoln's kindness left him in the hospital.

It was a hard wake up. To know that her actions really did have consequences. To know that her families suffering could be laid directly at her feet. She saw a psychologist for a bit. She wondered what was wrong with her. Nothing. Nothing was wrong with her. She had no excuses to hide behind. She was just thoughtless, until circumstances forced her to be thoughtful.

So she didn’t celebrate April fools anymore. Too many bad memories involved. And while she still played pranks, she was more careful with them. Pranks were supposed to be funny. There was nothing funny about lasting emotional damage or a trip to the emergency room.

Now Luan wondered what she could get or do for Lincoln on his birthday. Perhaps making him laugh would be enough.

**...**

True to her prediction, Luan made it home far before Lincoln did. Entering the house, she could hear Luna playing guitar in their shared room. So as not to disturb her sister Luan stayed in the kitchen, and idly practiced a few card and coin tricks that just needed some extra polish before she was ready to show them. Normally she would have gone to the garage for the purpose of practicing magic that she wasn’t ready to show to the public, but today she was waiting. Today Luan was waiting for Lincoln to get home. He’d been on her mind all day. Something easily explained by the fact that it was his birthday today. Easily explained… It was an easy explanation, but it didn’t feel like the correct one.

Luan considered herself to have a good relationship with her brother, at least as good as her relationship with any of her other siblings besides Luna, who she obviously had the best relationship with out of all her siblings. So they had a good relationship. For some reason that didn’t feel like enough today. It wasn’t enough. It was why Luan was waiting around the kitchen for him to show up. She hoped he would want to listen to her new routine, or maybe just tell jokes back and forth. That would be okay too.

Luna would probably still be practicing when Luan brought Lincoln up to hang out, and if she wasn’t willing to stop? Well, Luan was confident she could change Lunas Tune. Ha ha. Admittedly that was unlikely, Luna was pretty laid back, but sometimes you have to bend the truth for a good joke.

“Luan? Don’t you usually practice in the garage?” Luna quizzed, coming into the kitchen.

The intrusion startled Luan from her thoughts. She hadn’t even noticed the absence of music.

“Oh, uh. I was waiting for Lincoln.” She shuffled the deck, “He knows I’m a Card, and I think he’s Aces” She flipped the four aces off the top. “I thought we could Riffle through our options” She shuffled again, “And find something to do. We’ll have fun in Spades.” She pulled a stack of cards off the top and turned them over, spreading them across the table in front of her to reveal that they were all the spade cards in the deck. She shuffled again, “Feel free to join the Club.” She pulled another chuck off the deck and revealed them to be all the clubs.

Luna looked torn between clapping and covering her face and groaning.

“That’s… Oh bloody hell, I don’t know how to respond to that. Do I clap, do I groan, I don’t bleeding know!” Luna heaved a heavy sigh and composed herself. “We’ll just move past that then.” She took another breath. “I was actually coming down to wait for him as well. Maybe we can all do something together.”

“Sounds fun.”

So they both waited. It would still be awhile before Lincoln got home, if he actually was hanging out with Clyde after school like he said he was going to.

“How was class today?” Luna asked, flipping through her lyrics notebook.

“I don’t actually know. I remember some of it, but for some reason I just couldn’t concentrate.”

“Well it’s a good thing you have that recorder than.”

“Yeah… How about you? Did anything interesting happen at home?”

“Not really. I mostly just practiced songs. Leni is in the backyard working on some sculpture of something. I don’t actually know what it it.”

“Well let’s check.” Luan pulled out her phone and opened up Lenis website. She had been the one to help Leni set it up, so she had more access to it than most people did. She scrolled through the options and brought up the recent commissions. “Somebody requested a sculpture of themselves fist fighting a pizza.” She snorted.

Luna let out a gasping breath, laughing with her face buried in the surface of the table. She took a few breaths and got herself under control. “Why would anyone want that?”

“You can’t know the thoughts of someone like that. I mean maybe they’re more complicated than we’re imagining. Maybe their thoughts are deeper Dished than we thought. Ha ha, Get it?”

Luna sighed and went back to her notebook. And that’s how time passed. They mostly just did what they were doing. Luna looking through her lyrics book and Luan polishing some tricks. They only made conversation when it they actually had something to talk about because there’s no point in meaningless small talk.

They both looked up when they heard the doorknob rattle and a second later Lincoln stepped into sight.

“Little Bro! I hope you had a blinding day.” Luna exclaimed.

“Hey Luna, hey Luan.” He greeted, “It was pretty good, but I’m actually glad to be home now. I hope you two have time for me.”

“Of course, we always have time for our favorite brother.” Left unsaid by Luna, was that Lincoln was their only brother.

They gathered up their things and trooped up the stairs to Luan and Luna's room. Luna strummed her guitar while they waited the minute or two required for Luan to gather up materials for her routine.

She talked about history and stupid things people had done. How John Quincy Adams was crazy.

“So John Cleves goes to John Adams with this idea that the earth was hollow and he requests money for an expedition to the North Pole to get to a hole he believed was there that lead into the earth. Not Only did John Adams not turn him away and call him crazy, Adams funded the expedition and decided on his own that there must be Mole People inside the earth! He orders Cleves to make contact with them for trade! Of course the expedition later lost all its funding when Andrew Jackson was elected president, but only because Jackson firmly believed that the earth was flat!”

Luna and Lincoln were left laughing stitches into their sides, while Luan held a ball in addition to her dialogue. She spun it in one full rotation to show it as a whole unbroken sphere. When she got to the part about the earth being hollow, she turned it again to show the back had disappeared and the inside was hollow. She spun it around once more to show it was restored back to its previous condition, and flattened it between both hands when she got to the part about Jackson believing the earth was flat.

“People think the presidency is a hollow shell of what it used to be, but really it’s always been pretty bad.” Luan remarked, to a snort of amusement from Lincoln.

She raised an eyebrow. “That one wasn’t a joke.”

“No, it’s because. You just made a hollow pun. Was that really not supposed to be a joke?” Lincoln asked.

“What? A hollow pun. What are you- oh! I see. The presidency is a Hollow shell. Ha, but normally you don’t like puns, what makes this one different?”

“It’s not that I hate puns. I just don’t like them to be shoved in my face.”

Luan gave him a look requesting clarification.

“What I mean is. I think puns can be funny if they’re subtle. If a pun is included in a sentence, I want to discover that pun myself. If you make it obvious, you’re taking all the fun out of it for me.”

“That’s, huh…” Luan trailed off.

“You know, I’ve never really thought about it, but that does make sense to me.” Luna broke it. “If you had done that card trick earlier with all the puns, but you hadn’t emphasized the puns, I probably would have found it much more funny.”

“I’ll have to think about that.” Luan declared.

Luan continued her routine and her siblings continued to laugh until they all jumped when they heard the front door bang, as it slammed into the wall.

“Lincoln, I’m home! You wanna play a game!?” Lynn's voice called out.

Lincoln looked at Luna and Luan

“As hilarious and fun as this was, it seems I have to go now. Duty calls, unless you two want to come?” He asked.

“No, I’m good.” Luna replied.

“Running from place to place as fast as I can isn’t something I’m very fond of. I hate to admit it, but I think I’m a little bit racist.” Luan answered.

Lincoln stared at her for a second, before things clicked and he snorted in laughter. “Yeah well, it was nice hanging out. I’ll see you guys later.” He chuckled, waving over his shoulder as he left.

**...**

There was the hope that Lincoln would come back before their parents got home, so they could hang out some more, but it wasn’t to be. Mom and Dad arrived slightly before Lincoln and Lynn came back from where ever they went and it was time for dinner as soon as everybody was back in one place. They piled into Vanzilla the second, and Loris car to go to the buffet. The ride over was much less cramped with them all spread out over two cars, and they made it to the buffet in record time. The Loud parents paying for everyone. They clustered into two adjacent booths and got up to get food. Once they all had enough food to eat, plus an extra helping or two to secret away in tupperware from their moms big purse, that they would eat at home over the next day or two.

They ate and they talked and they filled the still air with the combined voices of thirteen people, as the discussed their days. Lincoln talked about school and his drawing, Lynn talked about the game of parkour tag they played, Leni talked about her sculpture with input from Luna and Luan, Luna talked about her music, and Luan talked about her magic. And all throughout the dinner, as people moved closer to whoever they were talking to at the time, or got up to get more food or make room for someone else. Everyone was shuffled around more than once. Throughout it all, Luan found herself moving and being moved, until she found herself through no effort on her own part, sitting directly next to Lincoln. His presents filled her with warmth throughout the meal and at the end when they all piled out of the restaurant and into the two cars, and Luan found herself once again next to her favorite brother, the warmth filled her up completely and she found herself light headed.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dating this chapter, I wrote this during the total solar eclipse… Not sure why you would want to know that, but if that information is somehow important to you… Well there you go. Though I only didn’t actually finish this chapter during the solar eclipse… Also dating this chapter: I took this chapter out to dinner and a movie. We had a fun time, and I think we’ll be seeing more of each other in the future.
> 
> As terrible as I am at puns, I actually had a lot of fun writing this chapter. I could also feel myself getting better at puns as I wrote it. I’m by no means good at it yet, but I might be able to throw one out once in a blue moon in conversation at my current skill level. By the time I’m done with this story I expect to be really good at puns, British slang words, and alliteration.
> 
> As terrible as puns are to hear, I suddenly get the appeal of them after writing this chapter. I thought of most of those puns myself and I had an absolute blast coming up with them. Incidentally, you want to hear a joke? No? Well too bad, I’m going to tell you one anyway. I once went to a zoo that had no animals except one dog. It was a shih tzu.
> 
> I can’t claim ownership of that last joke, but it’s one of my favorite puns.
> 
> When writing these first chapters, I have to constantly reference the chapters that came before, so I can keep everything consistent. I mean obviously there are differences between them, but there are certain things that only change due to a particular person being effected in a particular way, which doesn’t happen in the other timelines. Then there are things that just wouldn’t change no matter what, like everyones school schedules.
> 
> I didn’t remember until this chapter that there’s a wall keeping people from seeing the stairs while in the kitchen. If it bothers you hugely… I don’t know. Deal with it? If it bothers everyone I’ll go back and fix it, but until everyones shouting at me to fix such a minor detail, I’m just going to leave the inconsistency in and do better while writing future chapters.
> 
> I thought about giving Luan some kind of tragic back story that made her prank people so insanely. Some reason for doing it, even it it wasn’t direct. Like her redirecting frustration from bullies at her family or something. I’ve seen that backstory before, but I thought “why do that?”. Sometimes people just do bad things because they haven’t really thought about the consequences of their actions. Sometimes it’s not cruelty or misdirected stress that causes people to do bad things. Sometimes it’s just thoughtlessness.
> 
> I’ll explain what some might see as a discrepancy in my characterization of Leni. I said she was gullible and I mentioned that she had trouble making connections between disparate ideas, you might see that as stupidity in and of itself. To me, that’s not accurate. To me, stupidity is only the inability or unwillingness to make use to what information you have access to. That’s the only thing that determines whether or not someone is stupid. Learning differences don’t make you stupid. Gullibility doesn’t make you stupid. Trouble making connections between different idea doesn’t make you stupid. People like that are simply bad at those types of thought, but they’re almost definitely incredibly good at something else. For instance, I’m terrible at reading facial expressions and tone of voice. It’s insanely hard for me to tell what emotions other people are feeling, that doesn’t make me dumb, I’m just bad at that particular type of thought. By the same token, Leni is gullible, has trouble connecting ideas, and has several learning differences, but she’s not dumb. Whatever processing power didn’t go towards those things, went towards other things. Like the ability to make an outfit out of literally anything, in less than half an hour. On top of that, she’s been working on improving the things she’s bad at. As Luan said, I think that makes her pretty smart.
> 
> It struck me while writing this chapter that Luan and Luna share a room… Like it probably should have struck me before this chapter because the previous chapter was the Luna chapter, but it really didn’t. I mean I knew that they shared a room, but I didn’t make the connection in my head of what exactly that meant. I suddenly had to figure out where Luan is while Luna and Lincoln are hanging out. Why wouldn’t she also be there? That’s where the idea that she practices her magic privately in the garage before she shows the finished product to others came from.


	6. Timeline 6-1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is the start of chapter six… Now excuse me, I have a burger cooking right now and I don’t want it to burn.

 

  
The alarm went off. An irritating screeching beeping that played softly in Lynn's ears. She didn’t want to damage her hearing so the alarm stayed below a certain volume, and she didn’t want to wake Lucy up, so the alarm sounded through earbuds that she kept in her ears. Not even awake yet, Lynn reached for her alarm clock, missing several times and accidentally knocking it to the floor. Groaning she rolled off the bed and slapped the off button. She dragged her way to the door, the alarm trailing behind her, pulled by the earbuds still cocooned in her ears, until they reached the end of the cord plugging the alarm into the wall and earbuds popped out, just before she reached the door. Using the knob to pull herself to her feet, she manage to open the door and half shuffle, half stumble into the hall like a zombie. Walking in the direction that she vaguely knew the bathroom to be in, she came to a stop behind someone. Who it was, she honestly had no idea. They had blonde hair and that meant they were a sister, because Lincoln had white hair, but she wasn’t awake enough to go through the list of possibilities. There was something about… About today… It was today… Something important… Today…

The entrance to the bathroom opened and someone passed her by. She didn’t now who. Lynn lurched forward to fill the space created by the line moving. If she could she would be asleep right now. Lynn wished she could be asleep right now. Lynn wished she could sleep standing up. Lynn wished it wasn’t morning. Lynn wished morning didn’t exist. Lynn wished the carpet was more interesting to look at. Lynn wished she had the energy to look at other things.

Lynn was in front of the door, she just realized. When did that happen. People were talking behind her. She didn’t know what they were saying… Too tired.

“Hbro”

“Hey Lna”

“Thras somtinabout tday…”

It didn’t make sense.

The door opened again and Lynn staggered past whoever opened it, and fell to her knees on the tiled floor. Shedding herself on her clothes, she used the sink to support herself as she rose to her feet again and scrabbled for her toothbrush and toothpaste. Grabbing them up and turning to the shower. Swiping a hand at the temperature knob, she managed to turn it enough to get the water to the correct heat. Waiting, slouched in place with her arms hanging down in front of her, for the water to get hot enough. She could feel the mist as it splashed off the porcelain and when it was hot enough she tipped forward, taking a spill over the rim of the tub and crashing into the bottom of the tub where she lay for a second. She didn’t wear underwear to bed for this exact reason. If she did, it would just get wet when she failed to take it off before getting into the shower in a barely awake state. She needed to only wear clothes that were easily removable. The water was waking her up, and while still curled in the bottom of the tub, she set about brushing her teeth. She would floss and use mouthwash when she got out.

The spray pounding down on her like rain, drumming a beat into her skin like a tennis ball on the tarmac. It was enough to drag her into wakefulness. Not immediately, but as the water continued to come down, Lynn found in herself the energy required to stand up and go about her morning habits. Managing to climb to her knees and sit back in a kneeling position, she picked up a bar of soap and set about meticulously cleaning herself. Bringing the bar smoothly down the overside of her left arm and back up the underside, she messaged around the joint where her arm connected to her shoulder and continued to lather up the half of her body that was most easily cleaned in her current position. She rubbed the bar under the swell of her breast and down her ribs. She paid special attention to her mound and thighs. Smoothly down her calf and ever lower until she was massaging the bottom of her foot. Taking her hand away she brought it upward and closed her eyes, Kneading the soap and bubbles into her cheeks and neck, behind her ears and her forehead and the bridge of her nose. Switching the soap to her other hand, she repeated the process on her other side. Standing up she rinsed herself off in the spray, making sure to get the soap behind her ears as well.

Finishing up in the shower, she shut off the flow of water and stood in the tub to let most of the water clinging to her whirlpool down the drain. She was thinking about something earlier. There was something important about today, and now that she was more awake, she felt more up to thinking about what that might be. Okay, today was important for some reason, and there was something nagging at her that told her it had to do with Lincoln. Something important that involved Lincoln… It was Lincolns birthday today! Damn, she couldn’t believe she almost forgot. Stepping over the rim of the tub, she moved to the sink and set about flossing her teeth. She made sure to get the hard to reach ones in the back, throwing the thread away in the trash can between the toilet and the sink, she twisted the cap off the mouthwash and drew a mouth full of wash directly from the bottle. She swished it around her mouth and filtered it between her teeth, she tilted her head back and opened her lips to gargle the wash. Closing her mouth, she tilted her head back down and spat the frothy liquid into the sink.

Sighing heavily into the empty air, Lynn grabbing a towel and scrubbed it through her head roughly and quickly. Pulling in off her head, she repeated the action with her body. Slipping back into her shorts and t-shirt, Lynn wrenched the door open and marched past Leni into the hall. Lincoln was up and standing in line. It was time to put into effect a birthday tradition.

“Time for your birthday punches bro.” Lynn marched up to her little brother and reared her fist back.

To Lynn's combined amusement and satisfaction, Lincoln cringed back, seemingly unwilling to run away, but also instinctively unwilling to just take a hit either. Lynn supposed it was to his credit that he didn’t try to run away. It proved he had some heft to his balls, even if he wasn’t able to prevent himself from shying away.

“Ha! Two for flinching!” She crowed, punching him twice in the same spot on his arm. “That’s going to bruise.” She thought, walking away with a skipping spring in her step.

“You have to stop flinching bro, you know what happens when you do.” She heard Luna comment as she walked away, taking the steps two at a time down to the first floor.

Rounding the corner into the kitchen, Lynn took in the sight of the twins fighting over something or other, she didn’t know and she kind of didn’t care, so long as the fight didn’t become serious. They did this all the time. Luan was standing across the gap on the other side of the arch, Lily was happily crunching her way through a bowl of Sugar Snaps and Lisa was at the table mixing together something she claimed was a health drink, but Lynn thought looked and smelled like glue. Finishing her observations she weaved her way between the various other family members in the kitchen and opened the cabinet above the sink to pull out two protein bars in her favorite flavor, chocolate. They weren’t as good as real chocolate, but they were way healthier. Ambling her way back over to the archway across from Luan, she leaned back, placing her shoulders against the wall and crossed her legs to wait for someone else to come down and make something more substantial that she could mooch off them. Probably Leni. Lincoln made excellent waffles and pancakes, but it was also a school day and somehow she didn’t think he would be super willing to make her some for herself so soon after she just punched him in the arm.

The twins seemed to come to some kind of agreement because they stopped pulling each others hair and rolling around the kitchen. They marched in step over to the freezer and opened it up to get something from within, just as Leni came around the corner and began her own scan of the room. Leni strode with purpose to the freezer and held it open so the twins wouldn’t shut it when they retreated with a box of french toast sticks. Leni pulled out various bags of frozen fruit, closed the freezer, opened the fridge and pulled out various liquids. She then moved to the counter and set up the blender. She was picking up a bag of frozen mangos when Luan wandered over.

“Do you take requests. I would find a banana smoothie appealing. Haha, get it?” In absence of the ability to groan through a mouthful of protein bar, Lynn instead breathed out through her nose explosively at the absolutely terrible joke Luan just threw out into the world. All her puns were like squeezing out a toothpaste tube of liquid garbage. In other words, awful and impossible to put back. Those jokes would be with Lynn forever and she feared that on her deathbed, one of Luan's jokes would be the last thing she thought of.

Leni's head tilted slightly in way Lynn recognized as a position of thought, “Like because a banana has a peel?” Sometimes Lynn envied Leni.

“Hey, yeah, good job.” Luan congratulated her.

Leni turned back to the blender and picked up a bag of mangos, stopping when Luan waved to get her attention again.

“I wasn’t just telling a joke, I actually do want a banana smoothie.”

“Oh”, Leni set the bag of mangos back down and lifted the frozen bananas and the yogurt. She scooped a few large spoonfuls of yogurt into the blender, she put in an entire frozen banana and a caps worth of vanilla extract. She poured a little milk. She put on the lid and turned on the blender. There was a short struggle as the blades fought to liquify an entire frozen banana, but things smoothed out soon enough and Leni tipped the smoothie into a glass.

Luan gave a thumbs up and walked away. She couldn’t say anything because she was pulling a mouthful of smoothie from the glass. She returned to her previous position. The twins pulled their french toast sticks out of the toaster and jogged to the fridge to pull out butter, syrup, and jam. Lynn sauntered over to Lenis smoothie stand, only drawing enough attention to ensure Leni knew she wanted some of the next batch. She watched Leni drop in frozen mangos and other fruit, some yogurt and other liquids, and turn on the blender. Watching as the frozen chunks were broken down into smaller chunks and finally those smaller chunks were shredded into icy bits that flowed between the blades with the liquid. Leni Pulled a few glasses and set about pouring out a glass. Lynn reached for it, but it was snatched up by Lori before she could get it… That was irritating, but not worth getting worked up over. There was still more smoothie in the blender cup, so she refrained from flipping Lori the bird as she walked away. Not that she would have seen it. Turning back to Leni, she could hear Loris car as she pulled out of the driveway. Lincoln came up beside her and Leni pulled out a third glass. She split the remaining smoothie between the three glasses and the three stood in companionable silence drinking from their respective glasses.

“So son, you planning anything today?” Their dad asked, as he came into the room.

“Well.” The president in name began, everyone's attentions drawn to him by their fathers question, “I still have school today, which is okay I suppose. I’ve been working on a picture in art class that I was hoping to get done today. After that I suppose I’ll hang out with Clyde for an hour or two. Then I guess I’ll come home and spend time with my sisters.”

“Using your birthday to hang out with ten girls at once? That’s Smoothie Linc” Luan said, holding up her almost finished drink, “Haha, Get it?”

Her joke was met with a chorus of groans. Again, Lynn was afraid one of Luan's jokes would be the last thing she thought of on her death bed. It was a legit fear of hers. There were worse ways to go out, but that way would suck ping pong balls through a straw.

“Seriously though, you shouldn’t feel obligated to spend your birthday with us.” Luan remarked.

“I don’t feel obligated. You think I don’t like spending time with you? Outside of Clyde and maybe Ronnie Anne, you guys are some of my best friends.” Lincoln earnestly responded.

There was a wave of Awww’s and other noises of appreciation from his sisters. Heh heh. That felt… Nice. Lynn didn’t know why, but hearing Lincoln claim her as a friend made her happy.

“That’s sweet dude.” Luna sighed, “Luckily for you I don’t have any classes at the college today. So I’ll see you in the afternoon.”

“You don’t have any classes today?” Lynn asked almost offended, “I have.” She paused “Math class…” she finished with a hiss. Math was the bane of her existence… Well, math and Luans jokes. They were equally bad.

“Come now. Numbers are hardly as onerous as you’re making them out to be. Calculations are simple matters of logic.” Lisa commented from her place at the table.

“That’s easy for you to say Miss four college masteries.” Lynne retorted.

“I have five, but I suspect I shouldn’t be too hard on you if you’re really as bad with simple equations as you profess.” Lisa jabbed.

“Hey!” Fuck you!

“Don’t fight. It’s Linky’s birthday, and think about what he just told us. My feelings go all fuzzy just thinking about it.” Leni reprimanded her two fighting sisters.

Well, that was Leni for you.

“Well, I’ll see you guys after school.” Lincoln abruptly stated, bringing attention back to him. He had a light pink tinge to his cheeks. He ascended the stairs, Lucy coming into the kitchen just after he left. He came back down with his backpack slung over his shoulder and left the house, waving to them over his shoulder.

It actually was time about time to clean up. Lynn didn’t actually have her class until later, but she should still get up to her room and change into whatever outfit she was going to wear for the day.

**...**

Math fucking sucked. She wouldn’t even be taking it except that her parents asked her to. They wanted her to have other options in case her sports career fell through. She didn’t know why they were worrying. She’d already won several local sporting tournaments, taking home the cash prize each time. She’d been approached by multiple recruiters looking to gain her talents for their teams. She supposed it was possible she would get cripplingly injured, which wasn’t even that unlikely considering what she did, but she really wasn’t that worried about it. She had a sister who could build a time machine if she wanted to, if Lynn actually became so injured that she couldn’t play sports anymore, she was sure she could get Lisa to fix her.

Math though, math now. Math suuuucked. What is thirteen percent of fifty-seven? How was she supposed to know? Since when were math problems longer than most sentences? Uuuuurrrrrg, she needed a distraction.

“Ms. Loud.” Mr. Terry, her math teacher, called on her.

“What?” Lynn startled into alertness.

“Would you like to give us your answer to question three?”

“Uh. Twenty-six percent of sixteen is… Two?”

Somebody in the back of the room snickered, shutting up when Lynn twisted in her seat to glare. Her gaze swept over the back of the class, but she couldn’t figure out who laughed. Turning back to Mr. Terry she found him with an exasperated look on his face. He turned to the side, glancing at her out of the corner of his eye.

“I know I shouldn’t hold the entire family to the standards of Lisa,” She heard him mutter, to her mild shame, “but I expected better. How do I?…” He snapped his fingers, “I know.” He turned back to her and out loud said, “Perhaps I just didn’t explain it well enough before. I once had it explained to me this way by a friend of mine. Think of the percentage you have to calculate as change to a dollar. One hundred pennies is one hundred percent and one dollar. So f you’re calculating twenty-six percent of sixteen, multiply twenty-six cents by sixteen, and you’ll have your answer.”

Things clicked in Lynn's brain. That was… That was so easy!

“So twenty-six percent of sixteen is, wait, hold on, let me do this… Twenty-six percent of sixteen is four point one six.”

A small pleased smile spread over Mr. Terry's lips.

“Excellent Ms. Loud. Now Mr…” Lynn stopped focusing on his words once he wasn’t talking to her anymore, her attention directed at her test paper, which suddenly made about… Hold on… Fifty-seven percent more sense than it did before. This was… Awesome… Was this what Lisa felt like all the time?

She tried to pay attention for the rest of the class. It was difficult and her attention wandered more than a few times, but she still made the effort.

**...**

Feet pounded the pavement. Lynn racing as fast as she could back home. She weaved around a bus stop and the patrons who were waiting, and took off like a shot on the other side of them. She didn’t know why exactly, but she really wanted to spend time with Lincoln. She had some ideas: He was her friend, it was his birthday, he was one of her more frequent playmates, she liked testing her speed against his, she wanted to teach him her running techniques and see how fast he could possibly get, he was kind of nice to look at. He was her brother and nothing would change that, but she could still acknowledge his attractive features. There wasn’t a law that said she couldn’t.

All those reasons were valid, but they didn’t feel like all the reasons.

Getting to the house, she twisted the knob on the front door and threw it inward to impact against the wall.

“Lincoln, I’m home! You wanna play a game!?” She called out at the top of her lungs.

There was no answer for a second and she was wondering if she should call for him again, or if he was even home from Clyde's. He should be, it was well over three hours since his school day ended. Just as she was about to shout through the house again, Lincoln came calmly down the steps.

“What game did you have in mind?” He asked her.

She grinned.

**...**

All the way back since they were both children, Lynn had always liked doing parkour and had done her best to instill that like into Lincoln as well, as the sibling closest to her in age who was also closest to her in interests, besides Lana, Lynn had a lot of fun hanging out with her only brother. Parkour made everything better from traveling to games. Tag was almost made into an extreme sport by the inclusion of people flipping over park benches as they chased each other. It made the fun of playground games timeless. Acrobatics made hide and seek way harder, but also more extreme. In a traditional game the players might hide in a tree if they were fit enough to climb. In an acrobatic game of parkour hide and seek, being in a tree was pretty standard and the new ambitious spots became places like stretched across and above a door frame. These were Lynn's favorite games to play with Lincoln. As much as she would like to play football, or soccer, or even tennis with him, Lincoln wasn’t good at any of those things. She didn’t think he would ever be good at those things, considering his past and negative experiences with them. Him switching out with her on his middle school football team came to mind and an example. Still though, she thought she succeeded at injecting a like of parkour and running into him.

“Tag you’re it” He cried, tapping her heels at the end of his roll, he went into after he dived over a fence at the park.

Rolling to his feet, he took off running again, with Lynn on his tail. Pumping her legs and working her lungs to catch up to him. If nothing else the years spent playing together made Lincoln fast. He didn’t have the full body conditioning that Lynn did, but if he were to wear shorts, it would be obvious how much he used his legs. All said Lynn and Lincoln were even in speed, but that was simply because Lincolns body was built for speed, while Lynn was good at it. She knew all the techniques, the ways to turn at sharper angles while retaining her pace, the ways to move so that her stamina lasted longer, ways to move to help her step move more fluidly into the next with less wasted energy and without that brief pause between steps that most people experience without really realizing it. all of it together was enough to allow her to match the natural speed possessed by her brother, but Lynn wasn’t jealous. Lincoln may have speed, but Lynn had a better all around body type. She was good at everything, but not as good at one thing as those built for that specific thing. Still it was better to be a jack of all trades than a master of one. It was how she competed with the masters of specific sports. She wasn’t as physically durable and strong as a master of football, but she used her superior ability to turn on a dime, gained from basketball, soccer, and tennis, to duke around those she couldn’t go through. She wasn’t as good at duking around people as a master basketball player, so she used her skill gained in playing football to make doing so a chore. You could use skills gained from any sport in any other sport, so long as it was legal to do so.

“You’re it” She hollered, catching him in a turn around a tree. Gripping the tree, she used it to sling shot her back the way she came. Lincoln hot on her heels. She shifted left and turned on the balls of her feet to face her bro. He was almost in her face, reaching out to tag her, and with a split second to act, Lynn implemented her plan. Dropping to a crouch, she did a backwards summersault, and kicked off the ground when her feet came back around to halt her momentum, even as Link missed her completely and ended up dashing past her before he could slow down. Getting into a sprinters position, Lynn kicked off and rocketed away from him in the opposite direction.

“Dang it!” She heard him yell, eating her dust as he struggled to close the distance.

**...**

They returned home from their game at the park, pleasantly out of breath and unpleasantly sweaty, to see their Vanzilla the second in the driveway. A sight which meant that their parents were home. Sure enough, they were just inside, standing around in the kitchen with the rest of the family. They were trying to herd everyone out into the two cars in the driveway to drive them to the buffet. Lincoln and Lynn were forced to ask that they hold on a second for them to wash and dry their faces and put on some fresher smelling clothes.

Coming back down from freshening up, they were both immediately gathered in with the rest of family and pushed into Vanzilla the second and Loris car. The ride was much less cramped with them all spread out over two cars, and due to a distinct lack of traffic they made it to the buffet a lot faster than any of them expected.

Spilling out of the cars, they entered the buffet and assembled around two adjacent booths. They got up to get enough food to eat for themselves over the course of the evening. Then they continued to gather food until they had enough to feed them all for several evenings. There wasn’t a rule against it. It was an all you can eat buffet, they didn’t say how long you had to eat the food. Still they wouldn’t just walk out with all that food out in the open. The buffet might not let them come back. They would stuff all the extra food into Tupperware containers hidden inside their moms purse.

They talked and shouted, and made noise and conversation. Over the course of the dinner, Lynn found herself shifting around and being moved, until eventually, through no conscious effort o her own part, she was sitting right next to her little bro. They laughed and reminisced about the events of the day, shoving each other playfully, they spent the rest of the dinner like that. Eventually it was time to go. They all poured from the diner, and gathered into the two cars to drive home.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Believe it or not, the hardest part of this chapter was figuring out why Lynn would even take a math class in the first place. I just threw it out as a class that she would dislike in the first chapter to create an interesting character moment, but I’ve already created the character moment and to change what class she took I would have to go back and erase the entire interaction and replace it in four of the previous chapters. So it may be hard, but it’s easier than changing my mind and correcting four entire chapters for all references to it. I would say five previous chapters, but it was never mentioned in the Leni chapter.
> 
> If it wasn’t obvious, I don’t actually know a lot about sports. I never watch or pay attention to them. I play them occasionally when I can get enough people together to play a casual game, but my stance on sports is that I’ll always prefer playing a sport over watching other people play a sport. It’s just boring. Thus I don’t actually know much about how sporting tournaments work or anything like that. I’m just hoping my guesses aren’t completely wrong.
> 
> I’m also not the greatest at math believe it or not. I think I might have been able to be really good at it, because in school I had an almost instinctual understanding of it to a point. However, my teachers didn’t know how to get me above that point and nothing they said to explain more advanced concepts made sense to me. I do have a better understanding of it now, but not through others teaching me. It’s just that as I move through life and observe things, things click and I can suddenly understand more advances mathematical concepts. I was driving around town thinking about money, when I something clicked and I suddenly understood how to calculate the percentage of a number. A concept that nobody had ever successfully explained to me before then.


	7. Timeline 7-1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I’m writing this directly after finishing chapter six, like I always do for every chapter of any story I ever write, so I don’t really have a lot to say. I’m watching The Great Muppet Caper in between writing sessions to give myself a break and it’s not as funny as Muppets Treasure Island. I also tried to feed my cat a marshmallow. She ended up using it as a pillow instead, which while not its intended purpose, is still a somewhat appropriate use for it.

  
Lucy wasn’t exactly a late sleeper, but she was usually one of the last ones up. This wasn’t because she woke up late. On the contrary, she usually woke up on the earlier side. She wouldn’t claim the title of early bird, but neither would she assume the mantle of night owl. As far as her sleeping schedule went, she was average. That is to say, somewhere between the two. Not either extreme. That said, while she hadn’t timed it, she would guess that she probably woke up around the same time as the twins this morning. She could hear them going about their business. Lucy didn’t like to get up the moment she woke up though. She liked to lay in bed and just think for a while. It was one of the best times during the day to do it.

Movement from the corner of her eye, drew her attention. Lynn was awake… By a certain standard of awake. She didn’t have her eyes open, she kept missing the alarm. Eventually she just knocked it to the floor, and Lucy was gifted to sight of her older sister crawling around on the ground, struggling to turn her alarm off and then to leave the room. She eventually succeeded.

When Lynn left their room, Lucy turned her attention upward again. She stared at the ceiling, her eyes unfocused and her thoughts elsewhere. You observed things when people didn’t notice your presence. She’d noticed that Lisa was more tired than usual, and seemed to be preparing for something. What that was Lucy didn’t know. She’d also noticed recent changes in herself… She was happier recently. Not that she was an unhappy person normally, but she would label her usual emotional state as simply content. She was content with how things were. On a scale of one to ten where one equaled severe depression and ten equaled ecstatic happiness, Lucy would have placed herself as a five point five. Just on the happier side of neutral. recently though, that was changing. Not even all the time though. She was happy, but only while Lincoln was around… That required further thought. What did that mean? Was she simply becoming better friends with Lincoln or was something else happening?

Sitting up in bed, she supposed it was about time she got up. Swinging her legs over the side of the bed, she stood up and gather her garments for the day. Black buckle shoes, black tights with white flame patterned stripes, red panties, for a splash of color only she would know about, a white t-shirt, and a black dress with a dark red trim. She bundled the other articles around the panties so that not even her siblings would know about them, and she exited into the hall. Lincoln was ahead of her, and she felt her heartbeat speed up and a smile threatened to break over her lips. As it was, she couldn’t stop the corners of her eyes from crinkling in happiness. Her facade was only saved by the fact that her bangs hung over her eyes and made it hard to see them. Though she had long masters the ability to see past her bangs.

“How’s it feel to be seventeen Link?” Luna asked, as Lucy came to a stop to the rear of her brother.

The line moved and Lucy, having just come to stop, was forced to take one more step forward to keep close to her brother.

The line moved and Lucy, having just come to stop, was forced to take one more step forward.

They Shuffled forward, the space between them and the bathroom door shortening as the line moved. Lynn being admitted to the bathroom and Leni coming up to the door. Luna behind Leni and Lincoln behind her.

“Feels pretty good. One year older and one year wiser.” Lincoln responded

“Also one year closer to the sweet embrace of death.” She interjected.

“HOLY!” Lincoln and Luna startled, having just noticed her for the first time.

“Nobody notices me, sigh.” Lucy muttered. She wasn’t sure where her habit of saying the word sigh came from. She only knew that she’d done it ever since she was a kid, and when she said it, she actually did feel like sighing.

“Don’t scare a bird like that mate. You almost gave me a bloody heart attack” Their Music sister heaved for breath.

“You know, you’d think we would be used to this by now. Sorry for not noticing you Lucy.” Lincoln apologized.

“It’s fine. You have been better about that in the past than most of our siblings.” Lucy accepted. The smile she suppressed earlier made another attempt at breaking the surface.

“Yeah, I was just distracted by my conversation with Luna I guess. Speaking of which.” He pointed ahead as the door opened and Lynn stepped out into the hall. Luna stepping forward as Leni passed her sporty sister on the way into the bathroom.

“Time for your birthday punches little bro.” Lynn came upon Lincoln and cocked her fist back.

Lucy couldn’t see his face, but she imagined that he closed his eyes to go along with the way his body kind of shrunk in on itself.

“Ha! Two for flinching!” The sporty Loud made good on her promise by punching her brother twice on the same spot on his arm, walking away with a spring in her step while Lincoln rubbed the sore spot.

“You have to stop flinching bro, you know what happens when you do.” Luna idly commented.

“Yeah, I know, I know.” He blew out a breath. “Speaking of that, do I actually know she’ll only punch me once if I don’t flinch?”

“You do now.” Lucy re-entered the conversation. Seeing Lincoln in pain put somewhat of a damper on Lucy's mood. She wanted to help him if she could.

“Huh?”

“I learned a long time ago that if I stopped flinching she would only punch me once. She eventually stopped punching me altogether. I think it got boring for her.”

“She punched you too Luce?” Her albino brother asked.

Lucy simply nodded and went silent again. She hoped her advice helped.

“You got anything planned for your birthday?” Luna quizzed, “I think Mom and Dad were planning on taking us all out for dinner.”

Before Lincoln could answer, the door swept open and Leni skipped out and up to him.

“Hold that thought.” Luna said, stepping into the bathroom and closing the door.

“Happy birthday Lincy!” Leni squealed, wrapping him up in an incredibly tight hug.

Lucy had been subjected to Leni's hugs in the past, and while they definitely made her feel good emotionally, they didn’t have nearly the same effect physically. It was like being crushed by a boa constrictor.

Lincoln was breathing noticeably harder when Leni let him go. Leni smiled at him innocently and waved as she walked away.

“See you at breakfast Linky.” She spoke, making her way down the stairs.

“She’s more affectionate than usual today.” Lincoln noted out loud.

“Well it is your birthday.” Lucy vocalized announcing her presence once again.

“Yeah”

They didn’t speak again because it was then that the door to the bathroom opened and Luna exited, passing him on the way to the stairs and allowing Lincoln his turn in the washroom.

Lucy was left to her own devices in the hall. Nobody else came out after her and she was pretty sure that she was the last one to get out of bed that morning. With no one to talk to or observe, she was left to her thoughts again. It happened again. She felt happy at just seeing Lincoln. Lucy didn’t know what that meant or what she was supposed to do. She’d only just managed to keep her emotions from showing. It was alarming, but it also felt really good. Pressing her forehead against the door, she breathed out heavily. She felt closer to Lincoln just by doing this. If she pressed her ear to the door she could hear the shower running and it was soothing. The soft muffled pitter patter of water drops plinking off porcelain in rapid fire. The sound cut off and she could hear the metal rings holding the shower curtain up resound as they slid along the bar. She heard his bare feet slap the floor and leaned more heavily against the door. After a minute she heard him treading back to the door and she quickly backed up a step. The door swung open and Lincoln stepped out fully dressed… He looked good. He held the door open for her and stepped away when she entered through the portal.

She closed the gate behind her and locked the door. For a moment she just stood there breathing. There was a scent in the air that tickled Lucy's nose. It smelt familiar and pleasing. She took a deep breath, filling her lungs with it and breathed out slowly. If there was one advantaged to being the last person to use the bathroom, it was that she didn’t have anyone waiting on her so she could take her time going about her business.

Gathering herself, she moved over to the sink and set about her dental care. She flossed carefully but mechanically. She squeezed a drop of toothpaste onto her brush and set about brushing small circles into her teeth. Front first, then the left side, then the right. She opened her jaw and started brushing the backs of her teeth. Rinsing her brush off under cold water, she filled her cupped hands with the cool liquid and brought them up her mouth to sip a mouthful, which she swirled around her mouth and spat back out. Carefully pouring some mouthwash into the cap, she pulled it all into her mouth and shook her head back and forth lightly to swish the wash around her teeth, before spitting the wash into the sink. Turning away from the sink, she stepped to the tub. She turned the knob to get the flow going and heat the water up. Stepping one foot onto the other she used it to hold her black and white striped sock to the floor while stepping out of it with her other. Replicating the trick, she stepped her now sockless foot onto her other still socked foot and held the black and white foot covering to the floor while slipping her other foot out of it. She hooked her thumbs into the elastic of her panties and slid them slowly down her legs, stepping out of them when they reached her ankles. She pulled her arms into her nightgown and pulled it over her head, shedding it entirely shortly afterwards. Checking how hot the water was with a hand, she found it to be the correct he temperature and stepped in promptly.

Despite being relatively hot, the water sent a shiver down her spine on contact and goosebumps rose on her skin. Stepping directly under the spray, she let her hair get soaked through and stood letting the water rush over her. She only waited a moment though. She needed to act fast. If there was was disadvantage to being the last person to use the bathroom in the morning, it was that most of the hot water had already been used up. She would need to work fast, or she would be stuck finishing up in cold water. That always sucked. Pulling the shampoo and conditioner from the rack on the wall, she quickly washed her hair and scrubbed her body down with soap, acquired from the same rack. Stepping back under the flow, she let the water rinse off the soap and wash out the conditioner. The water was starting to loose its heat, so she shut it off and stepped out. She grabbed three towels. She wrapped one around her waist, one around her head, and one around her chest. Kneeling on the floor, she pulled the towels tightly around herself and just… Sat. This was how she liked to dry off if she had the time. It felt like she was nestled in a cocoon.

Minutes later she climbed back to her feet, removed the towels, hung them back up, and donned her outfit for the day. She opened the window a crack to let the steam out and left the room to descend the steps to the first floor. Her breath caught when she saw Lincoln coming up from the other way. He was staring straight ahead and his face was pink. He barely glanced at her on his way up the steps. She wondered what was wrong. Stepping into the kitchen, everyone was in the process of cleaning up whatever they had for breakfast. She saw that Leni had the blender out, so gliding over she asked.

“Do you have any more smoothie?”

“No, sorry Luce, but I can make another if you want.” Leni answered.

“Sigh. It’s fine. I’ll just have a bowl of Sugar Snaps.” Lucy slunk off, grabbing a bowl from the cabinet on her way.

Sugar snaps were not her favorite. They were fine in a pinch, but Lucy was not a fan. This was another disadvantage to being the last one up. Sometimes you missed breakfast. She looked up in time to see Lincoln pass by the archway with his backpack slung over his shoulder. He waved over his other shoulder, and Lucy waved back despite knowing he wouldn’t see it.

**...**

Due to the fact that she was only three years younger than her brother, Lucy actually attended the same high school. She saw him sometimes in the halls and recently she’d started to eagerly anticipate it. She knew his class schedule and sometimes, when she had the time, she would simply wait in places she knew he would pass by. Though she didn’t understand her feelings completely, she knew they made her feel good. Just seeing him was a nice pick me up, and she had to suppress the spring in her step that threatened to be sprung. She had a reputation that she quite enjoyed and the dumb thing about people was that they often assumed those they didn’t know fit into simple archetypes. If you acted differently than they expected, for even a day, they would start treating you differently, under the assumption that you changed simple archetypes, instead of going with the reasonable assumption that you were a person just like them and there was more to you as a person than was readily seen on the surface. She didn’t want people to start treating her differently. She liked the way she was treated now.

She approached him at lunch. He looked lost in thought, Clyde sitting next to him seamed to be trying and failing to hold a conversation, so she would forgive him if he didn’t notice her until she spoke.

She needn't have worried. She came from the front and though she got halfway across the cafeteria before he noticed her, once she got within fifteen feet, his eyes focused and his sight landed straight on her. A small smile reached his eyes.

“Hey Lucy. You need something?” He asked kindly.

Warmth spread through her.

“Ah!” Clyde jumped in his seat, drawing the attention of some kids at adjacent tables, who then turned back to whatever they were doing when they determined nothing interesting was happening. “Oh god, my heart.” He clutched his chest through his shirt. “How is it that I’ve spent almost as much time with your sisters as you have, and I still never notice when Lucy is coming?”

“It’s a talent. Some people have it and others just don’t.” Her brother jokingly replied.

“I wanted to know if you could think of a word that starts with “a” and means cheerful.” She spoke, ignoring the byplay. She already knew such a word of course and Lincoln would probably come up with the same word, but she needed something to open the conversation with and when she read the poem to him later, she wanted him to feel like he’d helped.

“Oh wow. It’s been a while since the last time you asked me for help with a poem. At least I assume that’s what this is?” He finished with a questioning lilt at the end and continued at her affirming nod. “Let’s see, a word that starts with “a” and means cheerful. Only alacrity comes to mind off the top of my head. I can keep thinking about it, if you want.” He offered.

She shook her head in the negative.

“No, that’s okay. I have another poem if you want to hear it.”

“Of course. I always have time for you.”

Lucy wanted so badly to grin, but she couldn’t. Not in the middle of the cafeteria at least.

“Feeling happy now. Good company helps a lot. Still like dark themes though.”

“I like it. It’s more cheerful than your usual fare, but that’s okay. You’re aloud to be happy.”

“I have more. Would you like to hear them?”

“Sure, but first let’s get you some lunch. We can talk as we eat.” He stood up and beckoned her over to the lunch line, leaving Clyde to keep their spots. Walking though it again, though with her this time, Lucy felt almost touched at his consideration.

Leading her back to the table, she placed her tray across from his.

“How about aflutter?” Clyde offered. He was probably thinking about it while they were gone.

“Hey, yeah that’s a good one. Would that work Lucy?” Lincoln responded.

“No, it’s not close enough to what I want. Using it would change the meaning of the poem.” Also she was already using alacrity, but her point about aflutter was still true.

Clyde shrugged and turned to his food.

“You had poems you wanted me to hear Lucy?” Lincoln prompted, bringing the conversation back onto the rails.

She nodded, and for the rest of the lunch, until the bell rang for next class, she recited her most recent poems to her favorite brother.

**...**

Getting home long before her brother, who’d gone to hang out at Clyde's house, Lucy retreated to her room. She wished she could still fit in the vents, but as of now the only members of the family who could fit in the vents were Lily, and maybe Lisa. It would be cramped for Lisa and she probably wouldn’t go up there for anything less than some kind of experiment, but she could probably still fit in them if she tried. Lucy wouldn’t say she missed being so small exactly. There were after all definite advantages to being as big as she was now, but she wished she could become smaller at will, or that the vents were way larger.

She was restless. Getting up from her cross legged position on her bed, she tread out the door. Sometimes when she was bored, she would check to see what her other siblings were doing. Luan was her favorite. Sometimes she caught Luan before she’d polished up a trick to any degree and she got to watch Luan screw up a magic trick. Sometimes she caught Luan just before she was ready to show other people and she got a preview to an amazing magic show. Sometimes when Luan screwed up, she screwed up badly enough for Lucy to see the slight of hand, and when that happened, Lucy gained knowledge on how to do the same trick herself. She now knew how to palm a card, and at least one method of forcing someone to draw the card you wanted them to from watching. Watching Luan is exactly what she did on this day. She drifted to the corner and sat down for what would no doubt be an entertaining show. Sometimes nobody noticing her did actually come in handy, no matter how annoying it was the rest of the time.

She watched as Luan cycled through several miscellanies card tricks, several forced choice tricks, a few false cuts and shuffles. She watched Luan do coin tricks, making a coin disappear from one spot and reappear somewhere else. She watched Luan mutter a comedy routine under her breath while twirling a sphere around. First it was whole, then it was hollow, then whole again, then she flattened it between her palms. With a flourished snap of her fingers there was a walking cane in her grip. Lucy watched her sister perform to an audience of nobody and got lost in the show, until they were both startled out of their concentration by the sound of the front door slamming open. Luan dropped a deck of cards to the floor and was forced to gather them up. Lucy merely jerked in place.

“Lincoln, I’m home! You wanna play a game!?” Lynn's voice rang through the house, to Lucy's alarm.

Lincoln was home? How long had she been watching Luan? She hurried as fast as she could, without alerting Luan to her presence, to the door that lead from the garage to the house. She stepped through in time to see Lincoln heading out the front door with Lynn, and arrived at the front door to see them already racing down the sidewalk. That… That was disappointing. Lucy had been hoping to read Lincoln her poem he thought he’d helped with. Maybe she could read it to him when he got back.

**...**

Lincoln and Lynn wouldn’t get back until it was time for dinner. More’s the pity. They arrived home to a family that was already gathered and ready to go, only delaying their departure with the need to freshen themselves up. They all trouped out around the cars and flowed in. With them all spread out over multiple vehicles instead of packed into one like sardines, like when they were younger, the ride was much more enjoyable.

They arrived at the buffet in record time and with their parents paying for everyone, they gathered around two tables that were right next to each other and created the line at the buffet bars. They gathered enough food to fill themselves over the course of the meal, and more besides, to sneak out in their mothers large purse. There was not specific rule against that, which meant it was fine. Lucy made sure to sit next to Lincoln when everyone sat down, and almost regretted it. Lincolns first order of business was to make a sauerkraut and peanut butter sandwich for himself. The smell along was enough to make her gag, and the thought of eating one made her feel like vomiting. How could he stand the taste? How could it be his favorite? It was just one of the many mysteries of Lincoln Loud. Lucy almost regretted sitting next to him. Almost, but not quite. Being near him felt like she was swaddled in a blanket, his choice in food notwithstanding. Though they didn’t talk much during the meal, she didn’t get to read him her poem, and she didn’t even really remember most of the meal itself, she could remember that she felt amazing.

Too soon it was time for them to leave. So making sure to pack as much food as they could away, they streamed from the diner and piled into the two cars to go home. Lucy didn’t manage to get a seat next to him on the way back. If fact she found herself in a completely different car, and all through the ride home she tried to understand and deal with a sudden feeling of loss and emptiness.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I keep accidentally pulling up other word documents.


	8. Timeline 8-1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I’m actually writing this several hours after I finished the previous chapter, but I still don’t really have anything to say. All I have is that this story is pulling me along. I can’t stop, not until I finish these first eleven chapters anyway. Even then, I still won’t be able to stop, I’ll just be able to relax and release chapters at a more sedated pace. I won’t be able to stop writing this until I’m finished with the story. Enjoy until then. I should give a warning here. When I have no idea what I’m doing with a character, things get kind of dry. I think that happened here. Hopefully I’ll do better writing Lola in the future.

  
There was nobody Lola was closer to than her twin sister, not even Leni or Lincoln. When you grow up with someone you just can’t help but love them. Even if their personality is so infuriatingly different from yours. And make no mistake, Lola and her twin were nothing alike. They may have looked almost identical, but that was only physically. How could she describe her relationship with her sister? There’s a point you reach where you’re so close to someone that you feel incomplete without them. You and them are two halves of the same whole. Once you reach that point, it’s possible to get over any fight and fights themselves become less of a serious problem and more of a means of relieving stress. It’s almost like ranting at the sky, or arguing with yourself. You already know everything your other half is going to do, and they already know everything you’re going to do, you’re just going through the motions because it’s become a habit… Thinking of that Lola wondered if she should be worried. Did the fact that she fought with her twin sister so much mean that she secretly hated herself? Ahh, it wasn’t worth thinking about that. Even if she did, she was sure she could rely on her other half to fix her.

“Lana, come on. We need to get dressed and eat breakfast.”

“Hold on, I need to gather my clothes together.” She graveled. That was something about Lana's voice that Lola never understood. It sounded like she just swallowed a fist full of dust before she said anything. Or like she hadn’t had a glass of water in days. It had been that way since they were both kids, so it looked like it was just a permanent part of her. Maybe all the dust she breathed in as a developing mechanic made her sound that way.

Stepping out into the hall with her sister following close behind, they came upon the line to the bathroom. Lily was standing at the door, dancing from one foot to the other. She clearly had to use the toilet. Lisa was dead on her feet behind Lily, which struck Lola as odd, but not worth thinking about in a lot of detail. If it became a problem, someone would call a sibling meeting. If that happened, she would worry about it then. Striding down the hall she came to a stop to Lisas rear, being jostled slightly by Lana when she came to a stop actually touching Lola. Not that Lola minded really. This was just how things were.

“Are you almost done in there? I really need to pee!” Lily called through the door.

“Hold on a second, I gotta clean up. It’s like there was a Potty in here. Ha ha, get it?” Luan's voice was muffled coming through the door.

“No…” Lily trailed off.

“Well never mind. Give me a second to dry off and I’ll come out.”

Nobody said anything for another minute or two, then the door swung open and Luan stepped out into the hall. Lily rushed passed her and slammed the door shut. There was an audible clicking sound as the door locked. Luan walked past them without acknowledgment and turned to descend the stairs. The line got shorter and everyone in it got that much closer to getting to use the bathroom themselves. When bored Lola liked to do something productive. She would like to do something productive now, but she was waiting in line, and she needed to stay in line or she would never get to actually use the shower. She was sure Lana would love to just skip out on a days worth of cleaning, but Lola had standards. So she was forced to just stand here. She supposed what she was doing could be thought of as constructive, she was after all using her time to get closer to her goal of cleaning all the previous days grime off and freshening up for another full day of fun. The door opened again and Lily skipped out into the hall, allowing Lisa entry to the room of bathing, and bringing Lola right up to the door. She was lucky that Lisa usually didn’t take that long in the bathroom in the morning. Somehow she still came out refreshed and cleaned, despite only taking as long as Lana to go about her business. Sure enough the door opened again and Lisa stepped out, looking much more awake. Lola slipped passed her and into the washroom.

Locking the door behind her, she stepped in front of the mirror. Unspooling a line of floss, Lola wrapped the length around a finger each on both hands and started cleaning the spaces between her teeth. She would never win a pageant if her teeth looked gross. Carefully bringing the stretch of floss to the molars in the back of her mouth, she lined it up and sawed back and forth carefully to get in down between the tightly packed teeth. Gently pressing down onto her gums, she brought the length back up and moved to the next space, and the next one, and the next one. Working her way around to the front and back around to the other side. She switched from the bottom teeth to the top teeth, repeating the process and bringing the floss back around to the front. Thankfully, her adult teeth came in a little while before so she didn’t have the massive gap between her teeth when she smiled anymore. She reached the back of the other side of her mouth. Removing the floss, she picked up her toothbrush and squirted a blob of paste onto the bristles. Running the head under the tap for a second, she brought the brush to her teeth and brushed up, down, left, and right. She unclenched her jaw and brushed the backs of her teeth. She spit the frothy paste out and ran the bristles under the water until they were clean. She filled a cup, she had in here for this specific purpose, with water and demurely took a sip. Just enough to fill her mouth without bulging her cheeks outward. When doing anything, one must do their best to do it like a proper lady. She sucked the water back and forth around her teeth and spat the water back out. She tipped some mouthwash into the cap and again sipped only enough to fill her mouth without bulging her cheeks. She again sucked the wash between her teeth and spat it back out. Smiling as wide as she could, she tilted her head back and forth, searching for any imperfections in her smile.

Lola rotated one-hundred and eighty degrees from the sink, to the tub. She slowly pulled her pink panties down her legs and stepped out of them before letting them go and rising back up to a standing position. Twisting the bottom hem of her nightgown in her fists, she lifted it up over her head, letting the pink garment drop to the floor. She turned the handle to turn on the flow and heat the water, and stood patiently while the water got to her desired heat. Stepping into the spray, she let the water wash over her for a second. Stepping from the direct spray, she snatched up a bar of soap and a loofa and began to scrub down her entire body, paying special attention to her face and budding breast. She stepped back into the direct spray and let the flow rush down her body and wash away the soap. She seized a shampoo bar, different from the liquid shampoos that her siblings used, bar shampoo was better for her hair. Lathering the bar betwixt her hands she ran the bar through her hair, once, twice, thrice. Setting the bar down, she curled her fingers through her hair and pulled, lightly raking her fingers through to both spread the shampoo further and catch any larger snarl. She ran her digits through her hair until each hair was as coated as it was going to get. Stepping into the spray, she watched the shampoo rinse from her hair. stepping back out from the spray, she picked up a bar of conditioner and went through the process again, running her fingers through her newly silky hair at the end of it all. She twisted the handle to turn off the spray and seized a comb from the rack on the wall. Dragging it through her hair, she was glad she’d taken care of most of the knots in her hair earlier. She combed because she found that doing so got the water out of her hair faster, which was a god send when you had a limited time in the bathroom. She watched the excess water spiral down the drain and stepped from the tub, onto the tiled floor. Putting the toilet lid down, she lay a towel down in front and another over the lid. She sat on the towel, with her feet on the other and delicately raked the comb through her locks. Brushing to either side of the part. She brushed until she was dry enough from the air, to wick away the remaining moisture with a light brush down with one of the towels.

Pink was Lola's favorite color. When she was younger, she was of the childish opinion that the only thing an outfit needed to look good was the color pink. It was why she wore unicolor pink dresses all the time. When she was younger, she was of the mistaken opinion that all jewelry enhanced an outfit. She tried to cover herself in as many pearls and rhinestones as possible. She knew better now. Pink was still her favorite color, but she now knew how to make the color work for her. She slipped on another pair of pink panties. She took the idea for buckle shoes from Lucy, and wore them as her main form of footwear now. Hers were a deep, dark red in color, with pink knee socks. Over her top, she snaked her arms through the sleeves of a long sleeve neon pink shirt, over top of which she put on a dark emerald green overall dress. Brushing her hair off her ears, she pushed an earring clasp through her pierced ears. Little ruby red rhinestones rested on her earlobes. She liked earrings the hung down from her ears better, but she learned that they only got in the way when she fought with her sister. Glancing in the mirror once more, she was satisfied with her appearance and opened the door for Lana, who glided past her into the bathroom.

Lola tread to the side of the hall and resigned herself to waiting for her sister. Hearing feet scuffle the carpet, Lola turned her head to see Luna stumbling to a stop at the back of the line. She looked more awake than most other people in the line, especially Leni who looked asleep on her feet. Sometimes Lola wished she could sleep while standing up and with her eyes open. If would help pass the time during the more boring parts of her pageants without tipping off the judges.

Lola didn’t have to wait for her sister long. Lana didn’t actually like taking showers and only did so because everyone else made her do it, thus she usually only took the minimum amount of time needed to clean herself to the satisfaction of others, before leaving the bathroom. Only four minutes had passed when the door opened again and Lana joined her in the hall, allowing Lori entry to the bathroom. The two halves of the same whole turned down the stairs, lightly shoving each other as they descended the steps. On the last step, Lana pushed her ahead, causing her to stumble forward a few steps, before they both entered the kitchen. In retaliation, Lola side stepped, stopped, and held a foot out to trip her sister, who expecting it, grabbed onto Lola as she went down. There they were, rolling around the ground, pulling each others hair, but mostly just fighting for the top position. This was the type of thing that happened when you were so used to someone that you could predict their every move. They were fighting, but there was no anger involved. They both knew a fight was going to happen before they even got to eat breakfast. With foreknowledge of the event, it became impossible to feel bad. It was going to happen. Why get angry about something that’s going to happen no matter what? besides that, It was occasionally kind of fun. They rolled around the floor, forcing those already in the kitchen to avoid stepping on them. That would have resulted in an actual fight. Not just a habitual fight. Whoever stepped on them would have two very pissed twins beating them down. The fight ended when their stomachs announced their displeasure with the current lack of food. It ended as it usually did, with neither one of them on top. They glanced into each others eyes for just a moment. Seeing what they expected to see, they helped each other up and moved to the freezer. Opening it they dug inside for a box of french toast sticks. Leaving the freezer to Leni, who’d shown up when they weren’t paying attention, they carried their prize above their heads, over to the microwave. Popping the entire box in, they pressed the defrost button and set themselves to wait.

“Do you take requests. I would find a banana smoothie appealing. Haha, get it?” They heard Luan chuckle, out of sight.

“Like because a banana has a peel?” Leni returned.

“Hey, yeah, good job.” Luan congratulated Leni.

“I wasn’t just telling a joke, I actually do want a banana smoothie.”

“Oh”

The microwave dinged, prompting the twins to removed the box. Pulling a plate from the cabinet, they opened the cardboard seal and spread the thawed sticks out on it. trouping to the toaster oven, the sound the blender turning on filled the room, they opened the glass door on the front, placed the plate inside, closed the door, and twisted the dial to medium. The toaster oven had a constant temperature. You could only tell it how long you wanted something to toast. They settled in for a wait. The sound of the blender cut off and the toaster dinged soon after. Opening the door, they pulled a small dish towel from a rack near the sink and used it to pick up the plate from the toaster without burning their hands. After setting the plate of the table, they jogged over to the fridge and pulled out french toast stick accompaniments. If you wanted a true french toast stick experience you needed, butter, syrup, and jam. Putting the three in small teacups, they had to stick the butter in the microwave for thirty seconds to make it a proper liquid, they carried the three to their place at the table and sat down to enjoy their meal. Sometime near the start, Lori passed in front of them and passed back the other way. It looked like she was in a hurry, and the twins could hear her car pulling from the driveway soon afterwards. Then Lincoln came into the room. Lola didn’t know why, but he immediately caught her eye, and a longing desire opened in the pit of her stomach. She didn’t understand it. Lincoln was her brother. She loved him certainly, but she’d never felt this way before. Why did she suddenly feel like there was something missing in their relationship?

“So son, you planning anything today?” Their dad asked, as he came into the room.

“Well.” Their brother began, everyones attentions drawn to him by their fathers question, “I still have school today, which is ok I suppose. I’ve been working on a picture in art class that I was hoping to get done today. After that I suppose I’ll hang out with Clyde for an hour or two. Then I guess I’ll come home and spend time with my sisters.”

“Using your birthday to hang out with ten girls at once? That’s Smoothie Linc” Luan said, holding up her almost finished drink, “Haha, Get it?”

Her joke was met with a chorus of groans. God, Luans jokes. Sometimes Lola wanted to scream when she heard them.

“Seriously though, you shouldn’t feel obligated to spend your birthday with us.” Luan remarked.

“I don’t feel obligated. You think I don’t like spending time with you? Outside of Clyde and maybe Ronnie Anne, you guys are some of my best friends.” Lincoln earnestly responded.

There was a wave of Awww’s and other noises of appreciation from his sisters. Lola's breath caught in her throat and she realized what she was feeling. It wasn’t as strong, but she was now feeling sometime like what she felt when she spent too much time away from Lana. Well that was easily fixable. She would make sure to invite him to join herself and Lana during their daily activities.

“That’s sweet dude.” Luna sighed, “Luckily for you I don’t have any classes at the college today. So I’ll see you in the afternoon.”

“You don’t have any classes today?” Lynn looked almost affronted, “I have.” She paused “Math class…” she finished with a hiss.

“Come now. Numbers are hardly as onerous as you’re making them out to be. Calculations are simple matters of logic.” Lisa commented from her place at the table.

“That’s easy for you to say Miss four college masteries.” Their sporty sister retorted.

“I have five, but I suspect I shouldn’t be too hard on you if you’re really as bad with simple equations as you profess.” Lisa jabbed.

“Hey!”

“Don’t fight. It’s Linky’s birthday, and think about what he just told us. My feelings go all fuzzy just thinking about it.” Leni reprimanded her two fighting sisters

“Well, I’ll see you guys after school.” Lincoln abruptly stated, bringing attention back to him. He had a light pink dusting to his cheeks. Aww, that was adorable. He ascended the stairs, Lucy coming into the kitchen just after he left. He came back down with his backpack slung over his shoulder and left the house, waving to them over his shoulder.

As soon as he left, Lola turned her attention back to the plate and found that Lana had eaten her helping and left about half the sticks on the plate for her. Lola expected that, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t grateful.

**...**

School was both easy and hard for Lola and Lana. There were classes that they excelled at and classes that they fell behind in. Of course, being two halves of the same whole, the classes that Lola fell behind in, Lana excelled at, and the classes that Lana fell behind in, Lola excelled in. They were sisters, they were twins, neither was going to fail while the other was at their side. They waded through the day, Lola helping Lana through geography and world history, and Lana helping Lola through math and P.E. They went through school like this every day. The only time of the day they both enjoyed at the same time, was recess.

While Lana ran off to play tag with the other children, Lola liked to sit back at the picnic benches and read a book. Recess was one of the few times during the day where they strayed any kind of distance away from each other. It was somewhat necessary though. As much as they loved each other, they still needed breaks. Lola imagined that if whole people could take vacations away from themselves every once in a while, they would. Lana liked rough and tumble outdoor activities, but that just wasn’t Lola's cup of tea. So while her sister played in the dirt and sand and acquired three days worth of grime in under and hour, Lola sat at a bench and read romance stories. She liked romance stories. A special girl gets a special guy and they both live happily ever after. It’s what she hoped her own love life would be like when she got old enough to actually start dating. Sometimes she liked to think about what her ideal guy would be like. In her imagination he was kind, considerate, funny, smart, and… older. She’d never really thought about his age before, but thinking about it now, she decided she wanted a guy who was older and more experienced than her. Freckles were cute, maybe he could have those, and hair that was on the lighter side.

The bell to end recess knelled and Lana joined her again as they marched with the crowd, back into the building.

**...**

The twins arrived home long before their older brother was due to come back. Not unexpected, considering He’d said he was going to hang out at Clyde's house before he came home. Lana started up the steps, pausing when it became clear that Lola wasn’t coming as well. She looked back at her questioningly.

“I thought it would be nice if we invited Lincoln to play with us today. It is, after all, his birthday.” She said by way of an explanation.

“Yeah alright, that sounds cool, but why are we waiting down here?”

“If we don’t, we might miss it when he comes home, and if that happens he’ll probably get caught up in spending time with one of our other siblings.”

“Okay. So what? It’s his birthday today, the point is for him to have fun. We don’t have to include him in our fun for him to have fun.”

Lola sighed.

“Okay, truthfully. I just really want to spend time with him today. I don’t know why.

“Why didn’t you just say so?” Lana turned from the stairs and strolled back into the kitchen, “We can wait for him.”

They sat across from each other at the kitchen table. Lana pulled an electric hand mixer from a drawer and a swiss army knife from her pocket. Flipping open the philips screwdriver attachment, she set about taking apart the mixer, examining each component, and putting it back together. This was something she did often. While she’d already learned everything she could from that particular mixer, she could still refresh her knowledge. Their parents let her do it, because there was almost no danger of her accidentally breaking it, and even if she did she could just fix it again. Lola watched idly, tapping her fingers on the counter. Pulling out a well worn ring bound notebook, Lola passed the time by sketching outfits to make in the future. She may not have been as good as Leni at actually making outfits, but she liked to think her skill in designing outfits rivaled her learning challenged older sister. It was a point of pride for her, because Leni was fantastic at fashion design.

Eventually they were joined by Luna, who stopped briefly upon seeing them.

“Hey little dudes. What’s got you two down here at this time of day?” Luna asked.

“Lola wants to spend time with Lincoln today, so we’re waiting for him.” Lana responded before Lola could.

“Hey, small world. I was going to wait for him too. We can all hang out together.”

That wasn’t exactly what Lola wanted out of the day, but it was fine. These feelings she was having were probably temporary, and if they weren’t gone by the next day, she could just play with Lincoln again.

Luna sat down at the table with her own notebook, which she started writing in almost instantly. The twins returning to their own activities. The three didn’t actually have a lot in common with each other. If you examined the entire family, you would find that none of them had a lot in common on a surface level, but some of them found common ground through simple repeated exposure to each other. This was the case with Lola and Lana. This wasn’t the case with Lola, Lana, and Luna. They never really spent time with each other outside of larger family gatherings, so they could be forgiven if the atmosphere between them was somewhat awkward. It was a relief when Lincoln came in through the front door and found them all just sitting around the kitchen table.

“Lincoln, you have to play with us today.” Lola demanded as soon as she became aware of him.

He raised an eyebrow.

“Hello to you too.” he began, “What? You want to play with me? I would love to play with you three.” His tone a voice was almost mocking. It would be insulting,except he clearly didn’t mean it.

“Little bro. I hope you had a brill day.” Luna greeted him. Lola's knowledge of britishisms told her that brill was short for brilliant.

“Hey Lincoln Logs.” Lana added.

“Alright, we’ve all said hello. Now let’s get upstairs and play a game!” Lola interrupted.

“Okay, okay. Let’s all go play a game.” Lincoln calmed her.

“Yeah, chill little dude, we’re going.” Luna threw in.

The four of them marched in the steps and ended up in Lola and Lanas room. It was kind of a mess, even by the standards of the Loud house. Probably because most of the family pets made their home in their room.

They pulled out Settlers of Catland, and settled down for what would probably be a lengthy game of resource management and cooperation. In a game such as Settlers of Catland, the point was to cooperate with the other players of course, but there would never be a winner if that was the only point. The game was really about cooperating until you could maneuver yourself into an advantageous position, then hold that position for as long as you could. The game operated on a points system. The more settlers you had the more points you had. The more roads you had, the more towns you had, the more resources you had, the more points you had. The objective being to reach fifty points before anyone else. It wasn’t a game that any one of them would have played on their own, but it was fine with four players. Of the four, the only ones who were actually any good at it were Lincoln, due to his advanced planning skills, and surprisingly Lola, due to her knowledge of geography. They were reaching the conclusion of their game, Lola would win with three more points and Lincoln would win with two, when the sound of the front door slamming into the wall made them all startle violently, tossing the game board a foot in the air and ruining the configuration of it all.

“Lincoln, I’m home! You wanna play a game!?” Lynn's voice called out.

Lincoln looked at them, and down at the board and all the scattered pieces.

“Well… That was fun, if a little anticlimactic. Duty calls though. Do you need my help cleaning up the game?” He asked.

His sisters looked down at the ruined game.

“No, I think we’re good.” Luna replied.

“Cool. Any of you want to come play with Lynn with me?”

“Lincoln where are you?!” Lynn called again.

“I’m upstairs!” He shouted back.

“You want to play a game?!” Her voice was closer now. She was probably coming up the steps.

“Yeah. I was just asking if Luna, Lola, and Lana wanted to come too!”

He turned back to them, “So do you?”

While the idea of running around was clearly very tempting to Lana, she held herself back and looked to Lola. Running around was not Lolas favorite thing to do, so she shook her head in the negative.

“No, I think we’re going to play by ourselves for a while.” Lana answered.

“Okay cool,” Lynn arrived in the door frame while Lincoln was talking. “Luna, do you want to join us?” He finished.

“I’m good.”

Lincoln nodded, turned to Lynn, and asked, “What did you have in mind?”

**...**

Lincoln and Lynn didn’t appear back at the house until their parents were home from work and gathering everyone in the main hall to go to dinner. They needed a moment to freshen up prior to joining the rest of the family, but once they did, the family was herded out into the yard and into the cars. With them all spread out over two cars, the ride was more enjoyable than when they all used to have to ride in one cramped van.

They got to the buffet faster than anyone expected, probably because of a noticeable lack of traffic. With their parents paying for everyone, they all gathered around two tables and got up to form a line around the buffet. They got enough food to feed themselves that night, and for several more nights after. They would hide all the extra food in their moms purse. An action that, while frowned upon, was technically legal. That was the best kind of legal.

They ate and talked and generally made a lot of noise, drowning out anyone else who might have been in the restaurant. They were probably pretty annoying to those people they were drowning out, but none of them particularly cared. It’s not like they did this constantly. This was special occasion, they were allowed to be annoying for one day.

Throughout the dinner, Lola found herself being shuffled about and moved, until through no choice of her own, she was sitting beside her older brother. This was… nice. Talking to him, she couldn’t help but notice his freckles… They were cute. Why hadn’t she ever noticed that before?

Dinner was over all too soon and when they all poured out of the buffet, Lola made sure she and her sister could snag a seat next to their older brother in the car.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It was actually really hard to write Lola. I don’t know what it is about her, but I have a hard time grasping her personality. All the other characters I thought I would have a hard time writing before I got to them, I actually had a pretty easy time writing. I thought Luan and Leni would be super difficult, and while they both had their difficulties, they turned out to be much easier than I thought they would be. Lola though… I don’t know if it’ll get easier to write her as the story goes on, but right now it’s brutal.
> 
> I don’t really remember what I learned in middle school.
> 
> I just sat and tried to think of what they could be doing during school hours, for like an hour. I’m exaggerating of course, it was more like fifteen minutes. Still it was a while of me just sitting and staring blankly at my computer screen.
> 
> I have one-hundred and sixteen different songs on shuffle right now. I think the player might actually just be playing the songs at random. Like that’s what you probably think you want when you hit shuffle, but if it’s truly picking a random song every time it switched songs, you end up listening to the same songs a lot. Sometimes it’ll just switch back and forth between two or three songs for like three go arounds before moving on. That’s true randomization, but it’s not actually what I want. I wanted it to shuffle the songs into a random order once, and then just play its way down the list. This way forces me to stop writing occasionally to change songs manually to one I haven’t heard in a while.
> 
> I’m writing these chapter notes as I write the chapter, because it’s easier to remember things I want to make a note of, as those things are happening, rather than hours after the fact. So I’m still writing the chapter now, but man, I can’t wait until I’m done with this chapter. Once it’s complete I can knock out the Lana chapter in like ten minutes, because Lola and Lana are almost never separated for this whole chapter, so I can just mirror this chapter, and write it again from Lana's perspective. I am feeling the pull right now. Holy crap. I know I’ve talked about this before, but it’s just this need to continue writing that feels like a hole in my chest that can only be filled by writing. I don’t know if other writers ever feel this way, but damn.
> 
> I based Settlers of Catland on Settlers of Catan. I mean it was obviously based on that game in the show, so I didn’t see a reason to change that.


	9. Timeline 9-1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Okay, time to mirror the previous chapter, while changing the perspective around.

  
There was nobody Lana was closer to than her twin sister, not even Lynn or Lincoln. Growing up with Lola, Lana just couldn’t help but love her. Even though their personalities were so frustratingly different. They had almost nothing in common with each other, except a love of each other. They may have looked almost identical, that they couldn’t have been more different mentally. If Lana were asked to describe her relationship with her sister, she would say that Lola was less like her twin sister, and more like the other half of herself. Lana felt broken when Lola wasn’t with her. That’s why she could forgive her sister for anything. Nothing Lola did could made Lana truly hate her. They fought a lot sure, but that was more like stress relief. To Lana, fighting with Lola felt like what she imagined screaming at the sky felt like for other people. It was just a method of relieving tension. It was also kind of habit. Lola was the half of her that made Lana whole.

“Lana, come on. We need to get dressed and eat breakfast.” Lola ordered

“Hold on, I need to gather my clothes together.” She replied

Stepping out into the hall just after her sister, they came upon the line to the bathroom. Lily was standing at the door, dancing from one foot to the other. She clearly had to use the toilet. Lisa was dead on her feet behind Lily, which was usual for the scientist, Lana wondered if something was wrong with her. She didn’t ask though. While it was a worrying sight, and it was uncommon, there were still days were Lisa would be more tired than usual. It was usually just because she stayed up all night working on an experiment. Striding down the hall Lola came to a stop just behind Lisa. Lana herself only stopped once she actually made contact with her twin, jostling her a little, but she didn’t complain so it was probably fine.

“Are you almost done in there? I really need to pee!” Lily called through the door.

“Hold on a second, I gotta clean up. It’s like there was a Potty in here. Ha ha, get it?” Luan's voice was muffled coming through the door.

“No…” Lily trailed off.

“Well never mind. Give me a second to dry off and I’ll come out.”

Nobody said anything for another minute or two, then the door swung open and Luan stepped out into the hall. Lily rushed passed her and slammed the door shut. There was an audible clicking sound as the door locked. Luan walked past them without greeting any of them and turned to go down the stairs. The line got shorter and everyone in it got that much closer to getting to use the bathroom themselves. When bored Lana liked to disassemble things and reassemble them. It helped her exercise her mechanical skills. She didn’t have anything to disassemble and reassemble at the moment, but she could still do it in her head. Let’s see, something simple for a warm up. A wind up egg beater. Excluding the casing which was only important for keeping the insides undamaged, a wind up egg beater worked on simple mechanical properties. To build one you only needed basic spacial reasoning skills. You needed even less to disassemble one. A wind up egg beater was simple a set of small gears with a chain wrapped around them. One of the gears would be made to turn slowly one way, but quickly the other. Another gear would have a spring curled around its axle that unwound when the gear spun, creating tension and a need to rewind itself. The axle would continue to a much larger gear. The door opened again and Lisa skipped out into the hall, allowing Lisa entry to the washroom, and bringing Lola right up to the door. Lola was lucky that Lisa usually didn’t take that long in the bathroom in the morning. Somehow she still came out refreshed and cleaned, despite only taking as long as Lana. Not that Lana was jealous or anything, but she wondered how Lisa could get so clean so fast. Only four minutes passed and the door opened again and Lisa stepped out, looking much more awake. Lola slipped passed her and into the washroom. Leaving Lana to herself.

Right ok, so the axle would connect to a larger gear that would be thicker that average… Or maybe take two gears and line them up with each other. It didn’t really matter, all the mattered was that the larger gear was able to rotate two smaller gears attached to the bottom and on either side of it. Two more axles would run down from the smaller gears to gears of equal size, spinning two more gears of equal size, spinning two more axles, leading to two larger gears that would now be spinning much faster than the first gear in the chain. Attached to those two larger gears would be to final small gears that would finally be far enough away from each other that the beater balloons they ran down to wouldn’t clash with each other and make the wind up beater worthless.

“Hey… Leni, Uh, sorry for like… literally waking you up this morning.” Lana heard Lori say from behind her.

Turning around and leaning to the side, she could see that the apology wasn’t getting through to Leni, who looked asleep on her feet.

The door opened again and Lola came out into the hall, allowing Lana entry to both her favorite and least favorite room in the house. It was her favorite because of all the stuff she learned while in there. She didn’t need to take apart the toilet anymore to learn about plumbing, but she still had fond memories of the times when she did. It was her least favorite room because of the very reasons she was here for now. Lana didn’t like to bathe. Sure she knew it was important, but in her opinion you should only have to clean yourself once a week… Wait… You should only have to clean your body once a week. She’d seen the pictures of kids with their teeth rotting out, and while the pictures were completely awesome, she didn’t want that to happen to her. She would brush her teeth everyday, but if it was her choice, she would only take a bath or a shower once a week. Sometimes Lana thought she would enjoy Victorian times, she’d heard they only cleaned themselves once a month back then, and while that was gross even by her standards, there wasn’t anything stopping her from simply bathing more often. It would be a win win, she would be cleaner than most other people and they wouldn’t make her take a bath more often than she wanted to.

Ignoring all that for the moment, she was here for a reason. Throwing her clothes into a pile in the corner, she stepped in front of the mirror and grasped her toothbrush. She squeezed a dollop onto the bristles and set herself to thoroughly cleaning her teeth. With her jaw clenched, she brushed her left, front, and right. She unclenched her jaw and brushed the back of her teeth. She brushed at a furious pace. She wanted to be done with this as fast as possible, but she was unwilling to let her teeth rot, so she compromised by brushing fast. She spit into the sink and immediately took a swig from straight from the mouth wash bottle. She wouldn’t use mouthwash, like she didn’t use floss, except that she actually really liked the taste. Everyone told her it would help fight off cavities, but that was a just a bonus to the flavor. If she could she would carry it around and drink it, but the last time she tried that, she was yelled at. Didn’t prevent her from drinking it now though. She swished the wash around her teeth to get rid of all the toothpaste residue and in three gulps swallowed all the wash in her mouth. Man was it tasty.

Spinning from the sink, Lana took a step to the tub, stopping right in front of it. She twisted the heat knob and pulled down her shorts and panties. She would go commando, but she’d been pantsed before when she used to do that… It wasn’t her fondest memory. She grabbed the neck hole of her t-shirt with one hand and ripped the shirt off, as quickly as she could without actually damaging the shirt itself. Stepping into the water flow, she wasted exactly five seconds relaxing under the hot water, then she seized a bar of soap and vigorously scrubbed her entire body. She picked up the bottle of shampoo, squeezed a blob into her hair and furiously massaged it in. She stepped back into the flow of water and let it rinse it all off. She didn’t use conditioner, it would just waste time and she didn’t care if her hair was silky. Twisting the knob back to turn the water off, Lana stepped from the tub and pulled a towel off the wrack. She quickly scrubbed down her entire body and her hair, getting as dry as possible as fast as possible. She hung the towel back up and equipped her outfit for the day. White panties, cargo pants, a t-shirt and a blue denim jacket. She put her ever present hat on last, and opened the door for the next person in line. stepping into the hall and up to her sister, as Lori moved past her into the bathroom.

Moving down the hall, the two halves of Lana turned down the stairs, lightly shoving each other as they descended the steps. On the last step, Lana pushed Lola ahead, causing her to stumble forward a few steps, before they both entered the kitchen. In retaliation, Lola side stepped, stopped, and held a foot out to trip her sister, who expecting it, grabbed onto Lola as she went down. There they were, rolling around the ground, pulling each others hair, but mostly just fighting for the top position. This was the type of thing that happened when you were so used to someone that you knew everything they were going to do before they did it. They were fighting, but neither of them were actually angry. They both knew a fight was going to happen before they even got to eat breakfast. Having already known the fight was going to happen, it became impossible to feel bad. It was going to happen. Why get angry about something that’s going to happen no matter what? besides that, Lana found times like these pretty fun. They rolled around the floor, forcing those already in the kitchen to avoid stepping on them. That would have resulted in an actual fight. Not just a habitual fight. Whoever stepped on them would have two very pissed twins beating them down. The fight ended when their stomachs announced their displeasure with the current lack of food. It ended as it usually did, with neither one of them on top. They glanced into each others eyes for just a moment. Seeing what they expected to see, they helped each other up and moved to the freezer. Opening it they dug inside for a box of french toast sticks. Leaving the freezer to Leni, who’d shown up when they weren’t paying attention, they carried their prize above their heads, over to the microwave. Popping the entire box in, they pressed the defrost button and set themselves to wait.

“Do you take requests. I would find a banana smoothie appealing. Haha, get it?” They heard Luan chuckle, out of sight.

“Like because a banana has a peel?” Leni returned.

“Hey, yeah, good job.” Luan congratulated Leni.

“I wasn’t just telling a joke, I actually do want a banana smoothie.”

“Oh”

The microwave dinged, prompting the twins to removed the box. Pulling a plate from the cabinet, they opened the cardboard seal and spread the thawed sticks out on it. trouping to the toaster oven, the sound the blender turning on filled the room, they opened the glass door on the front, placed the plate inside, closed the door, and twisted the dial to medium. The toaster oven only had one heat setting. You instead told it how long you wanted something to toast. They settled in for a wait. The sound of the blender cut off and the toaster dinged soon after. Opening the door, they pulled a small dish towel from a rack near the sink and used it to pick up the plate from the toaster without burning their hands. After setting the plate of the table, they jogged over to the fridge and pulled out french toast stick condiments. If you wanted a true french toast stick experience you needed, butter, syrup, and jam. Putting the three in small teacups, they had to stick the butter in the microwave for thirty seconds to make it a proper liquid, they carried the three to their place at the table and sat down to enjoy their meal. Sometime near the start, Lori passed in front of them and passed back the other way. It looked like she was in a hurry, and the twins could hear her car pulling from the driveway soon afterwards. Then Lincoln came into the room. Lana didn’t know why, but he immediately caught her eye, and a longing desire opened in the pit of her stomach. She didn’t understand it. Lincoln was her brother. She loved him, but she’d never felt this way before. Why did she suddenly feel like there was something missing in their relationship?

“So son, you planning anything today?” Their dad asked, as he came into the room.

“Well.” Their brother began, everyones attentions drawn to him by their fathers question, “I still have school today, which is ok I suppose. I’ve been working on a picture in art class that I was hoping to get done today. After that I suppose I’ll hang out with Clyde for an hour or two. Then I guess I’ll come home and spend time with my sisters.”

“Using your birthday to hang out with ten girls at once? That’s Smoothie Linc” Luan said, holding up her almost finished drink, “Haha, Get it?”

Her joke was met with a chorus of groans. Sometimes Luan's jokes made Lana want to prank her. She never did, but only because she remembered that not that long ago Luan was an absolute prank demon. Lana didn’t want to wake up the beast again.

“Seriously though, you shouldn’t feel obligated to spend your birthday with us.” Luan remarked.

“I don’t feel obligated. You think I don’t like spending time with you? Outside of Clyde and maybe Ronnie Anne, you guys are some of my best friends.” Lincoln earnestly responded.

There was a wave of Awww’s and other noises of appreciation from his sisters. Lana's breath caught in her throat and she realized what she was feeling. It wasn’t as strong, but she was now feeling sometime like what she felt when she spent too much time away from Lola… Maybe she could invite him to play with them when they all got back from school.

“That’s sweet dude.” Luna sighed, “Luckily for you I don’t have any classes at the college today. So I’ll see you in the afternoon.”

“You don’t have any classes today?” Lynn looked almost affronted, “I have.” She paused “Math class…” she finished with a hiss.

“Come now. Numbers are hardly as onerous as you’re making them out to be. Calculations are simple matters of logic.” Lisa commented from her place at the table.

“That’s easy for you to say Miss four college masteries.” Their sporty sister retorted.

“I have five, but I suspect I shouldn’t be too hard on you if you’re really as bad with simple equations as you profess.” Lisa jabbed.

“Hey!”

“Don’t fight. It’s Linky’s birthday, and think about what he just told us. My feelings go all fuzzy just thinking about it.” Leni reprimanded her two fighting sisters

“Well, I’ll see you guys after school.” Lincoln abruptly stated, bringing attention back to him. He had a light pink dusting to his cheeks. He ascended the stairs, Lucy coming into the kitchen just after he left. He came back down with his backpack slung over his shoulder and left the house, waving to them over his shoulder.

As soon as he left, Lana turned her attention back to the plate and found that Lola had eaten her helping and left about half the sticks on the plate for her. That was cool of her, to leave Lana's half untouched.

**...**

  
School was both easy and hard for Lola and Lana. There were classes that they were good at and classes that they were bad at. Of course, Lola being Lanas other half, the classes that Lola was bad at, Lana was good at, and the classes that Lana was bad at, Lola was good at. They were sisters, they were twins, neither was going to fail while the other was at their side. They waded through the day, Lola helping Lana through geography and world history, and Lana helping Lola through math and P.E. They went through school like this every day. The only time of the day they both enjoyed at the same time, was recess.

While Lola sat back at the picnic benches and read books, Lana liked to run off and play tag in the dirt and sand with the other children. Recess was one of the only times during the day that they spent any time apart from each other, but even the closest of people needed breaks from each other once in a while, so it was ok. Lana imagined that even if she and Lola were actually one person, with a single body and everything, they would still want breaks from each other every once in a while. It kind of made Lana glad that they didn’t both actually share the same body. It would be hard to take a break from her if they couldn’t physically leave each other. While running around with the other kids, Lana thought back to that morning and her reaction to Lincoln. He’d been wearing his orange and black stripped shirt. Lana vaguely remembered Lola telling him that black complimented his hair, and she was right. He did look really nice in black, but with orange included he kind of looked Halloween themed. Not that there was anything wrong with that. Lana liked Halloween, and orange looked good on him too… There was a lot to like about Lincoln. He was nice, funny, smart, athletic. His freckles were cute… Lana was startled from her thoughts when she found herself tagged and she had to chase someone else down. She was much more physically active that most of the other children, so she succeeded in under a minute.

The bell to end recess rang and Lana joined sister again as they marched with the crowd, back into the building.

**...**

The twins arrived home long before their older brother was due to come back. Disappointing but not surprising. He’d said she was going to hang out at Clyde's house before he came home so he probably wouldn’t be back for a while. Lola started up the steps, pausing when it became clear that Lana wasn’t coming as well. She looked back at her questioningly.

“I wanted to hang out with Lincoln today, if that’s okay with you.” She explained

“Because it’s his birthday? Alright. So we’re going to wait down here for him to show up?”

“Yeah, I don’t know why, but I just really want to play with him today.”

“Okay, that’s fine. We can just sit at the table until he comes home.”

They sat across from each other at the kitchen table. Lana pulled an electric hand mixer from a drawer and a swiss army knife from her pocket. Flipping open the philips screwdriver attachment, she set about taking apart the mixer, examining each component, and putting it back together. This was something she did often. While she’d already learned everything she could from that particular mixer, she could still refresh her knowledge. Their parents let her do it, because there was almost no danger of her accidentally breaking it, and even if she did she could just fix it again. Lola watched idly, tapping her fingers on the counter. Pulling out a well worn ring bound notebook, Lola passed the time by sketching outfits to make in the future. She may not have been as good as Leni at actually making outfits, but Lana liked to think Lola's skill in designing outfits rivaled their learning challenged older sister. That was pretty incredible, because Leni was amazing.

Eventually they were joined by Luna, who stopped briefly upon seeing them.

“Hey little dudes. What’s got you two down here at this time of day?” Luna asked.

“I wanted to spend time with Lincoln today, and Lola is waiting with me.” Lana responded before Lola could.

“Hey, small world. I was going to wait for him too. We can all hang out together.”

That wasn’t exactly what Lana wanted, but it would be rude and mean to tell Luna to go away, besides it was fine. These feelings she was having probably wouldn’t last more than a day, and if they weren’t gone by the tomorrow, she could just play with Lincoln again.

Luna sat down at the table with her own notebook, which she started writing in almost instantly. The twins returning to their own activities. The three didn’t actually have a lot in common with each other. If you looked the entire family, you would find that none of them had a lot in common on at first glance, but some of them found common ground through simple repeated exposure to each other. This was what happened with Lola and Lana. This wasn’t what happened with Lola, Lana, and Luna. They never really spent time with each other outside of larger family gatherings, so they could be forgiven if the atmosphere between them was somewhat awkward. It was a relief when Lincoln came in through the front door and found them all just sitting around the kitchen table.

“Hey Lincoln Logs, I wanted to play with you today.” Lana called out in greeting

Lincoln chuckled slightly at the nickname, and waved to them.

“Little bro. I hope you’re day was ace.” Luna greeted him.

“Hey Lincoln.” Lola added.

“I would love to play with you today. What game did you have in mind?” He asked

The four of them marched in the steps and ended up in Lola and Lana's room. It was kind of a mess, even by the standards of the Loud house. Probably because most of the family pets made their home in their room.

They pulled out Settlers of Catland, and settled down for what would probably be a lengthy game of resource management and cooperation. In a game such as Settlers of Catland, the point was to cooperate with the other players of course, but there would never be a winner if that was the only point. The game was really about cooperating until you could maneuver yourself into an advantageous position, then hold that position for as long as you could. The game operated on a points system. The more settlers you had the more points you had. The more roads you had, the more towns you had, the more resources you had, the more points you had. The objective being to reach fifty points before anyone else. It wasn’t a game that any one of them would have played on their own, but it was fine with four players. Of the four, the only ones who were actually any good at it were Lincoln, due to his advanced planning skills, and surprisingly Lola, due to her knowledge of geography. They were reaching the conclusion of their game, Lola would win with three more points and Lincoln would win with two, when the sound of the front door slamming into the wall made them all startle violently, tossing the game board a foot in the air and ruining the configuration of it all.

“Lincoln, I’m home! You wanna play a game!?” Lynn's voice called out.

Lincoln looked at them, and down at the board and all the scattered pieces.

“Well… That was fun, if a little anticlimactic. Duty calls though. Do you need my help cleaning up the game?” He asked.

His sisters looked down at the ruined game.

“No, I think we’re good.” Luna replied.

“Cool. Any of you want to come play with Lynn with me?”

“Lincoln where are you?!” Lynn called again.

“I’m upstairs!” He shouted back.

“You want to play a game?!” Her voice was closer now. She was probably coming up the steps.

“Yeah. I was just asking if Luna, Lola, and Lana wanted to come too.!”

He turned back to them, “So do you?”

While the idea of running around was very tempting to Lana, she held herself back though and looked to Lola. Running around was not Lola's favorite thing to do, so she shook her head in the negative.

“No, I think we’re going to play by ourselves for a while.” Lana answered.

“Okay cool,” Lynn arrived in the door frame while Lincoln was talking. “Luna, do you want to join us?” He finished.

“I’m good.”

Lincoln nodded, turned to Lynn, and asked, “What did you have in mind?”

**...**

Lincoln and Lynn didn’t appear back at the house until their parents were home from work and gathering everyone in the main hall to go to dinner. They needed a moment to freshen up prior to joining the rest of the family, but once they did, the family was herded out into the yard and into the cars. With them all spread out over two cars, the ride was more enjoyable than when they all used to have to ride in one cramped van.

They got to the buffet faster than anyone expected, probably because of a noticeable lack of traffic. With their parents paying for everyone, they all gathered around two tables and got up to form a line around the buffet. They got enough food to feed themselves that night, and for several more nights after. They would hide all the extra food in their moms purse. Secret food was Lana's favorite type of food, nobody knowing you had it, just made it that much sweeter.

They ate and talked and generally made a lot of noise, drowning out anyone else who might have been in the restaurant. They were probably pretty annoying to those people they were drowning out, but none of them particularly cared. It’s not like they did this constantly. This was special occasion, they were allowed to be annoying for one day.

Throughout the dinner, Lana found herself being shuffled about and moved, until through no choice of her own, she was sitting beside her older brother. This was… nice. Looking up at him, she couldn’t help it, she wanted to be closer. She shifted in her seat until she was pressed up against his side, and he responded by wrapping an arm around her and pulling her in tighter. Lana felt her cheeks heat up.

Dinner was over all too soon and when they all poured out of the buffet, Lana made sure she and her sister could snag a seat next to their older brother in the car.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With this chapter done, I only have the Lisa and Lily chapters to do.
> 
> Sometimes I worry that I’m actually an insane person and all this text that makes so much sense to me is a random word salad to everybody else.
> 
> At this point in his life, Lincoln is so used to being pulled from all sides that, while he doesn’t exactly have limitless energy and patients, he’s learned to set aside a portion of his energy specifically for hanging out with his sisters, and He actually does have fun spending time with them. Now if they were to pester him non stop for days, he would probably start to get pretty irritable.


	10. Timeline 10-1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Okay. Again writing this right after I finished the last chapter, so… I’ve been reading a Phineas and Ferb story recently. It’s called “All The Things That Can Change In A Hundred And Four Days.” It’s a story that ships Phineas and Candace. You guys should check it out if you’re in to Phineas and Ferb.

  
Lisa woke in an instant. Between one moment and the next. Her neural implant stimulating her nervous system, bringing her from restful sleep to alert wakefulness in the blink of an eye. Sitting up in her bed, she looked across her room to Lilys bed, to find it empty. She was already wake? Odd. Today was the day she started her part of the experiment. Lisa didn’t envy her counterparts who would have had to stay up all night in order to make the final adjustments to their sisters and brother. That wasn’t required of Lisa, herself, this version of her. She didn’t have to sneak around in the dead of night for weeks on end, to make the needed changes to the mental states of her siblings. She simply needed to make those adjustments to herself, which she didn’t need to hide from herself. The most problematic thing she’d run into was the realization that she hadn’t started puberty yet. This was a problem. It also should have been obvious to her from the start, but she supposed she’d been too caught up in other aspects of the project to think it over. In order to stimulate romantic feelings in herself, she needed to be physically ready for procreation. She was unwilling to change herself too radically. If she did, it would become apparent to her siblings that something was wrong. They would try to investigate. Lisa couldn’t have that. She also really didn’t desire to change herself enormously. The though felt her… Unsettled.

In order for a romantic development to take place, she needed to be ready for it. While she couldn’t just make herself ready for it, not without making the aforementioned radical changes, she could just start her own puberty. That’s what she did. It wasn’t visually obvious yet, due to her only doing it several weeks prior, but she could already feel the changes in her brain. Boys were becoming interesting as things other than test subjects or potential friends, and in accord with the specific guidance she’d placed over her own development, one boy in particular was becoming more interesting than all others. Lincoln. She couldn’t rush into this however. She may have made him more open to the possibility of romantic relations with a relative, but she could still scare him away if she was too blunt. She would have to be delicate about this, or risk the her part of the experiment falling apart at the seams and crashing down around her ears.

Lisa gathered her daily garments and stepped out into the hall, to the curious sight of Lily shifting from foot to foot in front of the door.

“Greetings Lily.” She addressed.

“Hi Lisa.” Lily replied, squirming in place.

“Might I esquire as to what issue you are having?”

“I really gotta pee.”

Hmm, amusing. Still, it explained why Lily was up earlier than her. Lisa didn’t have a neural implant for nothing. It woke her up every day at exactly six AM every day. For anyone other than Luan, who woke up even earlier naturally, to be awake before her was unusual.

Several minutes later, Lola and Lana came to a stop just behind her.

“Are you almost done in there? I really need to pee!” Lily called through the door.

“Hold on a second, I gotta clean up. It’s like there was a Potty in here. Ha ha, get it?” Luan's voice was muffled..

“No…” Lily trailed off.

“Well never mind. Give me a second to dry off and I’ll come out.”

Two minutes later the portal opened, allowing Luan egress to the hall and Lily entry to the washroom. Lily hurried in, slamming and locking the door after her passage. Lisa found herself the first in line, facing the door. Okay, okay, okay. Normally she wasn’t this nervous, but she’d never attempted something like this before. Maybe if she ran through her head what her other selves were going to be doing, she would be able to calm down. Going over notes to smooth over any misgivings. It was a method she was familiar with.

Let’s see, the Lisa from the control timeline had the easiest job out of all of them. She didn’t have to mess with anyone's brain. All she had to do was maneuver things in such a way as to ensure that Lincoln and Ronnie Anne Santiago had as many positive experiences together as possible. I simple matter of manipulating events to make certain that they run into each other often enough. They had good enough chemistry with each other that Lisa was certain she wouldn’t be forced to induce romance.

The Lisa from timeline two would have the comparatively much harder job of guiding a relationship between Lori and Lincoln into existence. She would have to be careful about that. Lori had experience with romantic relationships and the emotions they induced, from her previous failed relationship with Bobby Santiago. If Lisa wanted Lori to react well to her feelings for Lincoln, she would have to work on improving their relationship with each other first. Lori needed to think of Lincoln as her best friend, or she may try to run from her feelings once she became aware of them. There was still a chance that she wouldn’t react well, but by then, it would be much harder for her to make the choice to leave.

The door to the washroom swayed open, and Lily skipped out and down the hall. Lisa stepped through the door and shut it behind her. She cast her previous thoughts from her mind for the moment. It was time to take care of her morning ablutions. Unlike her siblings units, Lisa had a far superior method of cleaning herself. She didn’t have a toothbrush, and she wondered if anyone noticed that detail, or if they just didn’t care. Instead of the typical toothbrush, toothpaste, floss, and mouthwash, Lisa pulled a small vial from her pocket and popped the cap off. Emptying the contents into her mouth, she idly swished the liquid around. This was a personal favorite of hers among her inventions. The liquid was more than it appeared at first, second, or even third glance. It was one million microscopic machines suspended in an aqueous solution. The machines cleaned her teeth thoroughly without her having to do anything, and when they where done, the solution would heat up to let her know. She spat the liquid down into the sink once it was done, where it would travel down the pipes for a while, breaking down into its base components before it reached the sewer.

She took and step back from the sink and turned to face the tub. She could invent something to replace the shower as well, but she didn’t want to. The shower was one of the most relaxing times of her day. She did create something to cut down on cleaning time, but only so she could spend more time luxuriating in the heated water. Lisa rotated the handle exactly ninety degrees and initiated the removal of her dress. She unbuttoned her shirt and shrugged it off, bringing her hands down to her sweat pants, she hooked her thumbs around the waistband of her pants and undergarments and pulled them down her legs until they pooled on the floor. Stepping from the pool of fabric, she passed her hand through the rush of water to check if it had reached they optimum temperature. Once satisfied with the results of her test, she stepped into the flow. She reached for a bottle filled with her own creation. Designed to wash and condition both her hair and body, it had a safety lock on it to prevent children from getting in, and dissuading adults away from it and towards more easily opened bottles. She on needed to compress a dollop into the palm of one hand, and lather her hands together. Smoothing her hands over her form, she left a layer of oil and water soluble cleaner behind. Bringing her hands up to her head, she made certain her face and hair were both covered. Stepping into the direct spray, she could feel the grime and oils of the previous day sluicing off her body and hair. This was a singularly pleasurable experience, and Lisa cleared her mind to fully appreciate the sensation. Once she was completely clean, she reengaged her mind, turned off the flow, and stepped from the porcelain bowl. Digging around in her pajamas, she grasped a small object. It looked like a light bulb on a platform, and had a switch. This was her Infrared Water Steamer. When turned on it would evaporate small amounts of water at an accelerated pace. It was essentially a very weak, non contained, microwave with a specific purpose in mind. Setting it down on the counter above the sink, she flipped the switch and made three full rotations of her body, before flipping the switch back into the off position and donning her chosen outfit for the day.

Opening the portal back out into the hall, she stepped passed Lola, and took measured steps down the hall and to the stairs, descending them with deliberate strides. She stepped around the archway, into the kitchen. Luan was standing to one side on the archway and Lily was masticating her way through a bowl of unhealthy, sucrose infused, maze spheres. Colloquially known as Sugar Snaps. Lisa had hoped, when she was younger and more naive that Lily would never get hooked on such mass marketed detritus. That she did was a lesson in disappointment. Lisa supposed she needed to experience it at some point. She strode purposefully to the cabinet under the counter and next to the fridge. Opening it, she found her preferred morning provisions. A variety of powders, ready to mix, for the most nutritious meal science could provide. Carrying them to the table, she made a return trip to the refrigerator and acquired her liquids. A bottle of water, and what she called super oil. It combined all the best traits about all the other oils into one oil… That was an exaggeration. It combined the traits of ten oils into one. It was healthy for your heart, it tasted good, it provided a healthy kind of fat, you could grease an engine with it… It would needed to replace the oil in your car and you only had super oil, it would work. Lisa had only ever tried that during testing, so she couldn’t say how well it would work over a prolonged period. Placing all the materials on the table, she checked her watch for today's ratios. She was after all a growing girl and, in this timeline at least, she was going to be growing slightly faster than a normal girl. She had to make sure her proportions were optimal for her continued growth, every day.

Lola and Lana came side by side into the room, until Lola tripped her sister and they both tumbled to the ground and started wrestling across the floor. An unsurprising event. Watching them from her seat, they were only engaging in some light hair pulling. If this was a real fight, things would be broken by now. From her observations of them, she noted that the twins tended to act as a single unit. They had almost completely different behaviors, habits, and personality traits, but where one was found lacking, the other filled in. No doubt her counterparts, in the timelines where she was trying to pair one of the twins with their brother, would suffer complications when their romantic feelings fully manifested. Lola and Lana, respectively, would develop feelings of jealousy towards Lincoln, on the mistaken assumption that he was taking their twin away from them. Lisa hoped that didn’t become too much of a problem.

Lynn skirted the corner and entered the kitchen, pausing momentarily to take in the scene, before continuing in and to one of the cabinets above the counter. She reached in and grabbed two protein bars. Chocolate flavor from the looks of it. The Lisa iteration from the timeline labeled six, would have an easier time pairing Lynn with Lincoln than most other iterations of herself. While Lynn would doubtless have feelings of guilt associated with starting a romantic relationship with her brother, she wasn’t the type to think things through. She would, in all likelihood, discard her feelings of guilt once it became apparent to her that she wasn’t going to stop feeling that way about him. On Lincolns side, Lynn was the sister closest to Ronnie Anne Santiago in personality. Lincoln had already proven himself to be attracted to that personality type, the only issue would be getting him to accept his feelings.

The twins stopped fighting and marched to the freezer, pulling out a box of french toast sticks. Leni prevented them from closing the door, grabbing bags of frozen fruit from within. She moved to the fridge and collected various liquids. Drinking from her glass, Lisa watched Leni set up her smoothie station, Luan sidling up soon after.

“Do you take requests. I would find a banana smoothie appealing. Haha, get it?” Luan chuckled.

Leni's head tilted slightly in way Lisa identified as a position of thought, “Like because a banana has a peel?” Lisa had studied Leni, and from that study she knew that Leni wasn’t as dull as one might assume at first glance. She had a plethora of learning differences, and she was very gullible, but she was not what Lisa would classify as stupid. Stupid was the inability or unwillingness to make use of what information one possessed. Leni could use the information she had, she simply had trouble learning and retaining new information. As for her gullibility. Gullibility wasn’t stupidity, it was the characteristic of someone who placed too much trust in the words of others. Beyond that, she was much better now than she used to be. The fact that she’d recognized and was working on her deficiencies, told Lisa that Leni was actually smarter than most other people.

“Hey, yeah, good job.” Luan congratulated her.

Leni turned back to the blender and picked up a bag of mangos, stopping when Luan waved to get her attention again.

“I wasn’t just telling a joke, I actually do want a banana smoothie.”

“Oh”, Leni set the bag of mangos back down and lifted the frozen bananas and the yogurt. She scooped a few large spoonfuls of yogurt into the blender, she put in an entire frozen banana and a caps worth of vanilla extract. She poured a little milk. She put on the lid and turned on the blender. There was a short struggle as the blades fought to liquefy an entire frozen banana, but things smoothed out soon enough and Leni tipped the smoothie into a glass.

Luan gave a thumbs up in thanks, and walked away. She couldn’t say anything because she was drawing a mouthful of smoothie from the glass. She returned to her position near the entrance of the kitchen. The twins pulled their french toast sticks from the toaster oven and placed the plate on the table, moving over the fridge to pull out jam, butter, and syrup, as Lynn made her presence and silent request for smoothie known to Leni. Lisa saw a flash of white from the corner of her vision and turned to see Lincoln standing in the archway. She accidentally inhaled her drink, descending into a coughing fit, that had Lincoln crossing the distance between them and rubbing her back in an effort to help her out.

Oh God, this was awful. She made the final adjustment the previous night, but she hadn’t known her symptoms would be so strong. Did her hair look ok? Did her clothes? Coughing white all over the table was probably the least attractive thing she could have done. No wait… He didn’t see her as an object of romantic interest yet. Everything’s fine. Calm down.

Lisa pounded her chest and took a deep breath. Looking up to see Lincolns concerned face hovering over her, and the worried expressions on their sisters faces passed him. She felt her face heat up at how close he was, luckily she could easily pass that off as the result of her coughing fit.

“Are you okay Lise?” He queried softly.

Taking another deep breath, she answered, “I’m quite all right. Thank you brother.”

“Alright. Let me know if you need anything.” He turned away to grab a smoothie from Leni, only to have his glass snagged by Lori who returned to business as usual once she knew Lisa was okay.

Lori walked from the house and Lisa could hear her car pull from the driveway.

Lincoln simply grabbed another glass and he, Lynn, and Leni split the remaining smoothie three ways.

“So son, you planning anything today?” Their dad asked, as he came into the room.

“Well.” The president in name began, everyone's attentions drawn to him by their fathers question, “I still have school today, which is okay I suppose. I’ve been working on a picture in art class that I was hoping to get done today. After that I suppose I’ll hang out with Clyde for an hour or two. Then I guess I’ll come home and spend time with my sisters.”

“Using your birthday to hang out with ten girls at once? That’s Smoothie Linc” Luan said, holding up her almost finished drink, “Haha, Get it?”

Her joke was met with a chorus of groans.

“Seriously though, you shouldn’t feel obligated to spend your birthday with us.” Luan remarked.

“I don’t feel obligated. You think I don’t like spending time with you? Outside of Clyde and maybe Ronnie Anne, you guys are some of my best friends.” Lincoln earnestly responded.

There was a wave of Awww’s and other noises of appreciation from his sisters. Lisa's heart skipped a beat, even though she already knew this from observing his behavior. Knowing it and him directly saying it, were two different things.

“That’s sweet dude.” Luna sighed, “Luckily for you I don’t have any classes at the college today. So I’ll see you in the afternoon.”

“You don’t have any classes today?” Lynn looked almost affronted, “I have.” She paused “Math class…” she finished with a hiss.

“Come now. Numbers are hardly as onerous as you’re making them out to be. Calculations are simple matters of logic.” Lisa commented from her place at the table. Lisa suspected that Lynn had a learning difference of her own, when it came to math specifically.

“That’s easy for you to say Miss four college masteries.” Lisa's sporty sister retorted.

“I have five, but I suspect I shouldn’t be too hard on you if you’re really as bad with simple equations as you profess.” Lisa jabbed. Suspicions of learning differences didn’t prevent her was ribbing her sisters a bit every now and then. Maybe she would stop if she managed to prove that Lynn had a math based learning difference.

“Hey!”

“Don’t fight. It’s Linky’s birthday, and think about what he just told us. My feelings go all fuzzy just thinking about it.” Leni reprimanded her two fighting sisters.

“Well, I’ll see you guys after school.” Lincoln abruptly stated, bringing attention back to him. Capillaries in his cheeks filled with blood, turning his face pink with what Lisa concluded was embarrassment. He ascended the stairs, Lucy coming into the kitchen just after he left. He came back down with his backpack slung over his shoulder and left the house, waving to them over his shoulder.

Hmm… It actually was about time to clean up, and while Lisa didn’t have any classes to teach that day, she still had some experiments to run. Luckily, her food was easy to clean up. Unluckily, she’d sprayed health drink and spit all over the table earlier. She got up to go get a washcloth.

**...**

In her bunker lab in the back yard, Lisa did her work in front of a bank of monitors. Several of them switching between the various cameras in Luans network, why set up your own network when you can hack into someone else’s. Another few monitors showed the front door and the side walk on either side, leading up to the house. Lisa wanted to be informed when Lincoln came back. In the mean time, she had an various experiments on artificial intelligence running at once. On a computer, she had a paint program running that she’d designed to be able to get bored. Nothing super complicated. It had a count down that was only visible in the code and to the program itself, that would get down to zero in the program didn’t do anything. The paint program was designed to not want the countdown to reach zero and was given various means to stave it off. Aimlessly drawing doodles would slow the counter down. Drawing a picture would add time on the amount remaining. Drawing the same picture over and over again would give diminishing returns. Maybe that wasn’t exactly boredom, but it was the closest she could get at the moment, without more fully understanding the emotion. There were new studies that suggested that boredom was a low form of disgust.

One might ask her what she thought she was doing messing around with the minds and emotions of her siblings if she still didn’t fully understand the nature of emotions herself. She would answer that it was one thing to induce a particular emotion in something that already had the ability to feel that emotion. It was another to create an emotion from scratch, in isolation of any other emotion, in something that couldn’t already feel emotions. The latter was several orders of magnitude harder than the former. She understood well enough how minds worked as a complete unit that she could safely make minor changes like she did. If she couldn’t make the changes safely, she wouldn’t have even tried.

Aside from her experimentation into the nature of artificial intelligence, she occupied her time by writing out her predictions for how she believed the other timelines would go. It wasn’t strictly necessary, but it was interesting to think about.

In the third timeline, Lisa predicted that her counterpart would actually have a pretty easy time getting Leni and Lincoln together. If Lisa's notes on Leni were correct, Leni held family above all else in her life, and her love for Lincoln was already different than her love for any other family member was. It would be easy to influence her, and add romantic love for him on top of her familial love. She most likely wouldn’t even have any problems with the addition. Lincoln might be harder to sway, given his instincts to protect her. If he could move past that however, those instincts would only enhance his love for her.

The same things that would work in Leni's favor, would also work in Lilys favor. While the relationship would take longer to form, due to their age difference. Lincoln would no doubt be as protective of Lily as he was of Leni.

I her timeline, the tenth, Lisa predicted that a relationship would form faster and more easily than in half of the other timelines. Lisa herself knew what was happening, ad could pull Lincoln along into a meaningful romantic relationship. He would be reluctant of course, but she was his younger sister. Whatever protective instincts he had towards Leni and Lily, would no doubt also extend towards her. She was emotionally ready for him and she could already feel herself falling for him. She wasn’t sure if she was physically ready to have sexual intercourse yet, but she knew she would be in only a few months. Not that she believed they would be having sex in just a few months. Lincoln was more of a gentleman than that, and Lisa wanted to make absolutely sure she was definitely ready before she tried anything. There would be no point to the experiment if he or she were scared away from the other after a disastrous first attempt at breeding.

She looked up at the monitor, to see Lincoln leaving the house with Lynn… Wait. Leaving the house? How long had she been down here? Lisa put away all her projects, pressed in the seventeen digit code to leave, and climbed up the ladder. The trap door shut behind her with an audible hiss of hydraulics. Sprinting to the sidewalk, she could just see Lynn and Lincoln in the distance… Dang it. Now what was she supposed to do?

**...**

Unfortunately, Lynn and her love interest did not return home until it was time for dinner. The parental units of the Loud house, gathered everyone in the front hall to wait for those that were missing, and when they turned up, they were all shepherd to the two cars in the driveway. Vanzilla the second, and Loris car. Lisa made sure to acquire a seat adjacent to Lincolns and they made it to the buffet in record time. The ride was noticeably more comfortable with everyone spread out over two cars.

The Loud parental units paid for everyone, and they gathered around to tables placed right next to each other. They got up to get enough food to eat that night, and enough for them to eat for the next several nights. It was amusing to Lisa that the family still lived and acted as though they were poor, even though they had many more sources of income these days. She made certain to snag a seat next to Lincoln again, and almost regretted it. He was eating a peanut butter and sauerkraut sandwich, an unholy concoction that made Lisa question his sanity occasionally. She didn’t actually regret sitting next to him though. Her feelings were doubtless the result of her own tampering, but that didn’t change how good they felt, or how real they felt. She scooted as close as she dared to him, and started talking to him about her day. Leaving out the certain parts, like her predictions of the other timelines, she told him what she did in her lab, and her experimentation with artificial intelligence. He listened and nodded his head, and that was something that Lisa liked about him. Even if he wasn’t as knowledgeable in science as she was, he was still intelligent enough to make helpful suggestions. Like the idea to make a robot with the ability to feel. She could make it enjoy soft touches, and hate harder touches, but not give it any direction and just see how it starts to act over the course of several days. Other people might have spoken to her or Lincoln, but she didn’t know. She wasn’t paying attention. Lincoln filled her world at the moment, and he was enough.

All too soon, dinner was over, and it was time to go. Ensuring her seat beside Lincoln on the car ride home, Lisa couldn’t help but be glad she started this experiment.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you realize by this point that I am essentially writing eleven different intertwining stories here. If I complete this, it’ll be an epic of grand proportions, easily on par with the likes of the Odyssey or Beowulf… If the Odyssey and Beowulf were non canonical stories about children's cartoon shows.
> 
> Lisa can open portals to other dimensions, and the entire premiss of this story is that she split the timeline into eleven. I think the gadgets she’s shown so far are pretty tame compared to that.
> 
> Huh, Lisas feeling it bad too. Who would have thought?


	11. Timeline 11-1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Last chapter before I start releasing these into the wild. The story isn’t done yet, even after this chapter is completed, but I hope you stick around to see where this ends up. Writing this last bit after I already finished the chapter. I’m warning you that I hate this chapter, but I don’t know how to fix it within the limitations that I’ve set for myself. I hope this chapter doesn’t mar your experience with this story, and you stick with me until the end.

  
Lily woke up needing to pee, really, really badly. It ached. She was going to pee her panties! She jumped out of bed and scrambled to the door. Rushing through, she turned. The bathroom door was closed! Dang it!. She fast walked to stand in front of it and hopped from foot to foot. Then she stopped hopping because it only made the pee slosh around inside her in the worst way she could imagine. Instead she shifted from foot to foot and did a I-gotta-pee dance that involved squirming in place and waving her arms around.

“Greetings Lily.” She heard Lisa say behind her.

“Hi Lisa.” Lily replied, squirming in place.

“Might I inquire as to what issue you are having?”

“I really gotta pee.”

How long was whoever was in there gonna take?! Lily couldn’t wait this long. She had to pee right now!

“Are you almost done in there? I really need to pee.” Lily yelled through the door.

“Hold on a second, I gotta clean up. It’s like there was a Potty in here. Ha ha, get it?” Luan's voice was muffled.

“No…” Lily trailed off.

“Well never mind. Give me a second to dry off and I’ll come out.”

The door opened a minute later. Thank you! She pushed passed Luan and slammed the door behind her, stopping only long enough to make sure it was locked, before dashing to the toilet, pulling her panties down and peeing long and hard into the bowl. Ahh… It felt sooooooooooo gooooood… Yeah… She sighed in relief. Grabbing a few squares of toilet paper, she wiped her cat, and flushed the used toilet squares away. Kicking her panties off her ankles, she stepped in front of the sink… She couldn’t see herself. She dragged a plastic stool over and stood on it. Now she could see herself. Wasn’t she pretty? She picked up her toothbrush and squished a drop of paste onto the end. She passed the brush under cold water and brought it to her teeth. Brush, brush, brush, brush, brush, brush, brush. Up and down, and all around, that was how you fought cavatapities! She spat the paste into the sink and turned on the water, sticking her mouth down next to the stream to suck some into her mouth. Swish back and forth and spit it out.

Stepping down from the stool, she moved it back over to the corner and turned to the bath. She pulled her night dress over her head and threw it over with her panties. She turned the shower on and held a hand under the water until it got hot, then she climbed in over the rim of the tub. Lily liked the feeling of hot water. It was like a blanket. A warm snuggly blanket. Taking a bottle from the rack she tried to open it… It had a childproof lock on it, that meant it was Lisas. She put it back and grabbed another. She could open this one. And it was shampoo. She squeezed a blob onto her head, rubbed it in, and stepped under the spray. All the shampoo washing off her and down the drain. She turned the water off and climbed back over the rim. Grabbing a towel, she wrapped it around her whole body and lay on her side on the floor. Once dry, she unwrapped the towel, put it back on the rack and put on her panties and night dress again. She forgot to grab day clothes when she was rushing to the bathroom. She opened the door to let Lisa in and skipped down the hall and down the stairs.

Lily saw Luan turn the tv off as soon as she saw her, and she ran up to her older sister, her arms waving behind her as she did.

“Can you help me get down the Sugar Snaps?” Lily asked.

She followed she older sister into the kitchen and watched while she got out Lily's most favoretist cereal in the whole world, Sugar Snaps. Luan set the cereal, and bowl, and some milk on the table. She hovered around for a second, before leaving and standing in the doorway.

Lisa came through the door, stopping when she saw them.

“Greetings siblings.” She said.

Then she walked over to the cabinet to make her gross morning glue. Lily didn’t like it. She liked Sugar Snaps. She happily crunched a spoonful of Sugar Snaps.

Lola and Lana Started wrestling on the floor. Lily noticed them when they bumped her chair.

Then Lynn came in, and went behind her. She came back with two bars. They looked like candy bars, but Lily was pretty sure they weren’t candy bars.

Lola and Lana stopped fighting, and Leni came into the room.

“Do you take requests. I would find a banana smoothie appealing. Haha, get it?” Lily heard Luan say.

“Like because a banana has a peel?” Leni asked

“Hey, yeah, good job.” Luan said.

“I wasn’t just telling a joke, I actually do want a banana smoothie.”

“Oh.”

The sound of the blender running started through the kitchen, all the while Lily just ate her Sugar Snaps. She was almost done with her bowl. One more bite. Done. She poured another bowl. She liked to use the milk from the old bowl. At the end the milk from two bowls tasted better than the milk from one.

The sound of the blender started again. Lincoln came into the room, then Lori, who left. Lily could hear her car as she pulled out of the driveway.

“So son, you planning anything today?” Their dad asked, as he came into the room.

“Well.” Her biggest bro began, everyone's attentions drawn to him by their fathers question, “I still have school today, which is okay I suppose. I’ve been working on a picture in art class that I was hoping to get done today. After that I suppose I’ll hang out with Clyde for an hour or two. Then I guess I’ll come home and spend time with my sisters.”

“Using your birthday to hang out with ten girls at once? That’s Smoothie Linc” Luan said, “Haha, Get it?”

Her joke was met with a chorus of groans.

“Seriously though, you shouldn’t feel obligated to spend your birthday with us.” Luan remarked.

“I don’t feel obligated. You think I don’t like spending time with you? Outside of Clyde and maybe Ronnie Anne, you guys are some of my best friends.” Lincoln earnestly responded.

There was a wave of Awww’s and other noises of appreciation from his sisters. Lily perked up in her seat. That made her happy.

“That’s sweet dude.” Luna sighed, “Luckily for you I don’t have any classes at the college today. So I’ll see you in the afternoon.”

“You don’t have any classes today?” Lynn looked angry for some reason, “I have.” She paused “Math class…” she finished with a hiss.

“Come now. Numbers are hardly as onerous as you’re making them out to be. Calculations are simple matters of logic.” Lisa commented from her place at the table.

“That’s easy for you to say Miss four college masteries.” Lily's sporty sister responded.

“I have five, but I suspect I shouldn’t be too hard on you if you’re really as bad with simple equations as you profess.” Lisa mocked.

“Hey!”

“Don’t fight. It’s Linky’s birthday, and think about what he just told us. My feelings go all fuzzy just thinking about it.” Leni chastised her two fighting sisters.

“Well, I’ll see you guys after school.” Lincoln abruptly stated. His face was red. He went up the stairs, Lucy coming into the kitchen just after he left. He came back down with his backpack slung over his shoulder and left the house, waving to them over his shoulder.

Lily finished off the last bite of her Sugar Snaps and sucked the milk down.

**...**

That day at school, Lily learned how to spell her brothers name. When the teacher asked them what word they would like to learn, Lincoln was the first thing she thought of. Then she learned how to spell other words, like white, orange, black, freckles, tall, and Halloween. It was a good day.

**...**

When Lily got home, she was tired. She took a nap, and slept until it was time for dinner. They piled into the two cars in the driveway. Vanzilla the second and Loris car. They drove quickly to the buffet, and poured in. Sitting around two tables that were right next to each other, they went to get food. They got enough for themselves for the night, and enough for a few more nights. They were going to sneak the extra food out in Moms purse. It was like a spy game.

Everyone started talking about their days, and Lily told everyone about how she’d learned how to spell six new words at school that day. Everyone was impressed. Lisa told her to go sit next to Lincoln, so she did. It turned out to be a good idea. Lincoln smelt nice. He also felt nice.

Dinner was over soon and they all had to leave. They piled back into the cars and drove home. Lily got to sit next to Lincoln again on the way back.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was kind of a hard chapter, as short as it ended up being. I don’t really remember my childhood well, so I wasn’t sure how detailed and… wordy, I guess? I should make her narration. I think in the future, I’m going to narrate from Lily's perspective as little as possible and just examine her behavior from the perspective of the other characters.
> 
> As lackluster as this chapter seems, I have something specific in mind for the Lincoln/Lily timeline. I just don’t know how to write from a child's perspective, so I limited the chapter as much as I could, while still getting across her essential character… Which is bright and energetic… What do you want? She’s a seven year old, she hasn’t exactly had the chance to form a more nuanced personality. She’ll be better fleshed out in future chapters.
> 
> I keep leaving basically the same chapter note over and over again. If you’re disappointed with this chapter. You’re not alone. I am too. I just have no idea how to improve it. As I said, I’m not good at writing from a child’s perspective and these introductory chapters demands that I write from the perspective of the Loud sisters.
> 
> The only thing I’m happy about in this chapter is how blunt Lisa was in getting Lily to sit with Lincoln. With everyone else she needed to maneuver them without their knowledge, but she knew she didn’t need to do that here. She just told Lily to go sit with him and she did. It’s kind of hilarious.


	12. Control timeline 1-2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I’m making grape ice cream at the request of my sister who wanted to try it. I’m not sure how it’ll turn out. Grapes don’t really have a distinctive flavor. Anyway, this is the second chapter in the control timeline. Meaning the Ronnie Anne timeline. Have fun reading this. Also, sorry it took so long. I was so enthralled reading another story, that I actually completely stopped working on this one until I finished. That’s part of the reason. The other part is that I decided to finish a chapter for my Naruto story before I worked on this one. If you want to read it, it’s called “Hey You, Shut Up!”, but you may be disappointed by the fact that I didn’t start it with any kind of end goal in mind. So I’m just writing and seeing where it takes me.

  
The experiment had begun. With what amounted to a cross timeline conference call, Lisa came into possession of the information that the initial results were promising across every iteration of her family. Lisa-2 was already reporting an increase in corporeal affection between Lori-2 and Lincoln-2. With a comprehension, gained through the collaborative sharing of knowledge, pertaining to the pattern of events that took place across every iteration of the initiation day of the experiment, Lisa-4 was able to determine that Luna-4 did not act a manner that was significantly different than her alternate timeline counterparts. With the minor exception that Luna-4 did not sing Lincoln-4 a birthday song, she behaved identically. Intervention might not be necessary, but the situation bore further observation. Lisa-5 reported that a single conversation between Luan-5 and Lincoln-5 resulted in a significant change in behavior for the comedian. It was too early to tell if the modification would endure, but things were looking promising. Lisa-7 reported a noteworthy heightening of amorous behavior from Lucy-7, with regard to Lincoln-7. Lisa-8 and Lisa-9 reported results that were almost identical to each other. Lisa-10 reported that her induced puberty was progressing well within expected parameters.

All of that was well and good. Now, however, it was time for Lisa to push forward her part of this grand experiment. She’d taken the time to acquire a play date, for Lincoln, with Ronnie Anne Santiago. Now, all she had to do was tell Lincoln where and when to be. This approach was a little bit ham-fisted, yes, but Lisa didn’t need to be nimble in her approach. Unlike her other timeline selves, she didn’t need to hide what it was she was trying to do from Lincoln. As long as he never realized everything else that was going on; she could dispense with subterfuge and simply tell him that she was trying to get him and Ronnie Anne Santiago together. She wouldn’t volunteer the information unless he asked, but it wasn’t something that required any amount of deception either. Turning from her, much smaller, bedroom lab, she tread across the room and opened the door. Stepping out into the hall, she brought one hand up and cupped it around her mouth to make half a primitive amplification device.

“Lincoln! Come to my room! I have something to tell you!” She shouted throughout the house, not altogether sure where Lincoln was exactly.

**...**

“Give up Mistress Music. We have you cornered. There’s nowhere to run.” Ace Savvy stood, his cape billowing in the wind. Next to him, stood just one member of the Full House Gang, The Deuce. She was bearing her teeth and looked about ready to start the violence.

“Tell us what you did with Joker and Night Club, Fiend!” The Deuce shouted dramatically, stomping one foot in front of the other, and bending both of her legs in an aggressive stance.

Across from them, Mistress Music stood in her customary, musically themed costume. All Purple and Plaid, a ammo belt containing microphones was strapped across her chest. She stood at ease, in this empty field, in front of an abandoned warehouse, holding her sonic guitar. The grass rustled in a breeze. Twisting eddies of wind sent dry pieces of grass rolling across the grassland between them.

“Heh, heh, heh.” She began to chuckle, “Where is Night Club, you ask? You don’t get it do you?” She smirked evilly and met their hostile gazes with her own, “I am Night Club, you fools! You can’t even see what’s right in front of you!”

“Liar!” The young Heroine Screamed across the field, “Night Club would never betray us!” She was held back from attacking, by the steadying hand of Ace.

“She’s telling the truth.” He intoned seriously.

“You knew?” Mistress Music asked, apparently shocked by the revelation.

“I Suspected, but I didn’t want to believe it.”

“Heh, well you are the best detective.” Mistress Music conceded.

“No! Night Club, how could you!?” The Deuce fell to her knees in despair.

“The game is up Night Club. Now tell us where Joker is.” Ace commanded.

“Don’t call me that! I left that name behind, along with my previous life!” Mistress Music bellowed angrily. “As for Joker,” She chuckled. “Allow me to introduce you to The Harlequin.”

A green and purple dressed femme fatale, stepped through the door, out from the abandoned warehouse. She strutted over to Mistress Music and took a stance of aggression beside her, her arms folded across her chest.

“Hey Ace, what do you call it when you watch your chances of victory swirl down the porcelain throne? A Royal Flush. Get it?” Her voice was soft, but held a sinister undertone.

Ace Savvy set his jaw sternly.

“Lincoln! Come up to my room, I need to tell you something!” They were broke from their game by Lisa, shouting at Lincoln from the second floor window. Standing in the Loud Family back yard, four siblings looked up at Lisa from various places around the yard. An epic showdown, it was not, but that didn’t stop them from pretending.

“Aw, what?” Lily, complained, “We didn’t even get to the good part!”

“Yeah, can’t this wait until later?” Luna added.

“It’s quite vital that I have his attention now.” The family scientist responded.

“Alright, see you guys in a few minutes.” He turned and sauntered across the yard, to the door.

“You know that Royal Flush pun would have worked better if Lana was here.” Luna said.

“I know right? I was just thinking that.” Luan replied.

“Maybe we can get her to play with us, after Lincoln sees what Lisa wants.” He heard Lily say, just before he closed the door to the house.

Crossing through the kitchen, he curved around the archway, and climbed the steps two at a time. Stepping onto the second floor landing, he made his way to Lisa and Lily's room, his fingers brushing the wall and trailing after him as he walked. Lisa specifically called him up, so he didn’t think he needed to knock. He opened the door and stepped through. Lisa was standing next to her computer.

“You wanted me for something?” He asked.

“I’ve taken the liberty of inviting Ronnie Anne Santiago to hang out with you.” She flatly stated.

“Uh, what? Why?” He quizzed, taken aback.

“After seeing your interactions with her on your date of birth, two days ago, I’ve come to the conclusion that you need to reform your relationship with her.”

“Okay?… Why do you care?” Lincoln turned his head and side eyed her.

“I’ve decided to study relationships. It’s best to observe these things from the outside. Personal involvement could result in contamination. Or, to put it simply, objectivity is inversely proportional to personal involvement.”

“So you just want to study me?” Lincoln didn’t know if he should feel insulted by that or not. On one hand, she was exploiting him, on the other hand, this was just how she was. He was sort of used to it. So thinking about it… He should feel insulted, but just kind of… didn’t. Huh.

“Do not think so little of me, if you please. I would very much like to study you, but I wouldn’t have chosen you as my subject if I didn’t believe the experience would be good for you as well. You and Ronnie Anne Santiago were good for each other.”

“Okay. Why didn’t you choose Lori and Bobby than?”

“They were also a potential couple that I could have chosen, but I don’t have the resources or time to study more than one relationship, so I had to choose between you and Ronnie Anne Santiago, and Lori and Bobby Alejandro Martinez-Millan Luis Santiago Jr. I flipped a coin.”

“Ah, a coin flip, the most scientific of ways to make a decision.” While a little bit touched by Lisa's consideration for him, he was also a bit annoyed that she’d done this without asking him first.

“Please do not taunt me.” Lisa requested, bringing a hand up to pinch the bridge of her nose, as if fighting off a headache. “Look, I’ve set up a date for you. That’s already done. Either go or call Ronnie Anne Santiago and cancel it.”

“Alright well, when is it?” He sighed, combing his spread fingers through his hair.

Smirking slightly, Lisa looked at her watch. “If this time if correct, and it is, you have exactly twenty minutes to get to Gus’s Game and Grub, or call Ms. Santiago and cancel. You best make haste.”

The albino stared at her for a second. “What!?” He dashed from the room, turning around the doorframe, and sprinting to his own room. He scrambled to put his shoes on. “Why didn’t you tell me about this an hour ago?!” He didn’t pause to let her answer. “Tell the Lily, Luna, and Luan what’s going on!” Was the last thing he shouted to her, before he ran full bore, down the stairs and out the door. If he was fast enough, he could catch the bus there. If he wasn’t fast enough, he would have to sprint.

**...**

Stepping through the doors of Gus’s Game and Grub, Lincoln immediately spotted Ronnie Anne. Man it’d been ages since he last came here. She was sitting with her head lowered and her cheeks resting in her palms. She perked up when she saw him come in, and waved him over.

“Lincoln! I got your message. How’s it going?” She greeted. “Are you wearing a cape?”

Lincoln felt his face heat up with embarrassment. “I was playing a super hero game with Lily and lost track of time. I realized I was running late and forgot to take it off, in my rush out the door.” People stared at him the entire bus ride over.

“A super hero game, huh?” Ronnie Anne looked amused. A smirk stretched across her lips, and the look in her eyes demanded further detail.

“Lily found out, a while ago, that the Full House Gang, from the Ace Savvy comics were based on the us. She wanted to play a super hero game where she got to be The Deuce. We used Luna and Luan as the villains.”

Ronnie Anne snorted, and chuckled. “Well, not that I’m not happy to see you…”

“But you’re wondering why I invited you out here to hang out with me, when I haven’t invited you to do that in a while; and why I invited you here, of all places, even though the last time we came here was at least four years ago?”

She coughed awkwardly, “Yeah, That…”

Lincoln silently cursed Lisa in his head. Did she still think this was a prime hang out spot of his, or was she messing with him? He hadn’t really thought up an excuse on the bus ride over, so now his mind raced as he grasped for a plausible explanation. “Well, after I saw you on my birthday, I realized that we’d drifted more than I thought we had. I thought inviting you to spend time with me, one on one, would help strengthen our friendship.” This was the worst excuse in the history of terrible excuses, even topping that time Lola tried to pass a food explosion off as modern art, so she wouldn’t have to clean it up. “I chose here, because I thought nostalgic surroundings would help us relax?” The last part came out more as a question, than a statement.

Ronnie Anne was staring at him, and Lincoln could only beg for god to smite him before he had to suffer through any more embarrassing awkwardness. The employees and Ronnie Anne, would no doubt freak out if a lightning bolt came down and struck him where he stood, but hell, if he lived, it might even strengthen their relationship more than this inevitable train wreck.

“Ha!” She laughed, “Same old Lame-o. You’re a terrible liar. You just weren’t really thinking about it, when you asked me to hang out, where you?”

“Yeah, no, sorry.” Thank god. She, at least, believed the first part of that. He felt like wiping imaginary sweat off his brow.

“Hey, no problem.” She punched his arm, “I’m sure we can find something to do here.” She stepped away and looked around, while Lincoln rubbed the newly created sore spot. At least she didn’t punch him twice.

Following her around, as she wandered through the arcade, Lincoln struggled to think of something to say. These days, when they spent time with each other, they usually had someone else there as well. Or they were at a party, and conversation flowed naturally due to the setting.

“How’s your book going?” He finally settled on.

She glanced over her shoulder at him, her hands in the pockets of her jeans, she shrugged and continued walking. “Oh, you know. Creating the recipes for it is harder than you might imagine. I have to organize everything into separate sections, so it’s easy for the reader to navigate. Difficulty of it, notwithstanding, I’ve been having a lot of fun with it.”

“I can imagine that creating entirely new recipes would be difficult.” They stopped at a shooting game. Some game where you shot undead, while making your way through a haunted carnival. “What’s your favorite recipe so far?”

“Well, I’ve been having trouble with making a mushroom and pumpkin soup. It’s not my favorite recipe, but it’s the one I’ve been obsessing over these last few weeks.” She never paused in her massacre of onscreen undead. “I finished a recipe for a mint and banana cream cheese cake, last month. It’s honestly one of the most delicious things I’ve ever tasted.”

Just the thought of it made Lincolns mouth water. “That, wow, I need to try that.” He swallowed some of the spit that was actually, legitimately, pooling in his mouth at the idea. “Oh shit.” He cursed. A hulking dude, in a hockey mask, with a gatling gun where one of his hands should have been, burst from a door at the end of the hall and started shooting at them.

They were both forced to focus on shooting him, instead of talking to each other, and they spent the next minute or two in silence. He finally went down and they both let out sighs of relief.

“Is it just me, or were we supposed to die there?” Ronnie Anne asked.

“No, you’re right. I’m pretty sure that guy was designed to force more quarters out of us.”

“Huh, brutal.”

They continued playing. Failing to save this blond girl, who was also trapped in this evil carnival for some reason, before she was dragged away by giant spiders. The hockey mask dude came back around the middle of the level, with a chainsaw this time, and they shot him to death again. They made pretty good progress through the level, until they were both killed by evil Marie Antoinette. Looking at the side of the machine.

“Carnevil, huh?” Lincoln read the name out loud.

“What?”

“The name of this game is Carnevil. It was kind of fun, we should come back to it sometime.”

“Oh, yeah.” Ronnie Anne was smiling, nodding along with him. “I kind of wish Gus’s had Typing of the Dead. Now that, was a awesome game.”

“Typing of the Dead?” Lincoln had to ask.

“Yeah, come on, don’t tell me you’ve never played it.”

“I’m sorry to say I haven’t.”  
“Oh man, I have to show it to you sometime. I learned how to type from that game! It was amazing!”

They stopped, again, in front of a dancing rhythm game. Looking up at it, Lincoln turned to look at her when he felt her gazing into the side of his head. She was smirking challengingly, and her hip was cocked.

“You think you can beat me at this, after all these years?” She asked.

“Oh, I know I can.” He accepted her challenge.

“I don’t know.” She stepped onto the dance platform and scrounged around in her pocket for some quarters. “I’ve always been fitter than you.”

“I think you’ll find,” he slid a coin through the slot, “That I’ve become a lot more athletic in recent years.”

“Well good luck, you’ll need it.”

They smiled at each other daringly, and hit the start button at the same time.

**...**

Waving to him as he walked away, Ronnie watched the dorks cape billow around in a way that would have been dramatic, if it wasn’t so stupid looking. He stepped onto the bus, and Ronnie turned around to walk towards her own destination. Picking up the pace, she jogged to a nearby parking lot to wait for her ride. She didn’t have to wait long. Carlota pulled up in an old convertible. Paid for with her own money, it was Carlotas first car. Ronnie reached over the door, unlocking it and pulling it open in one motion. She sat down and buckled her seat belt.

“So, Ronnie,” Carlota began, a smile stretching across her face. “How was your date?” She was clearly trying not to burst into a giggle fit.

Ronnie rolled her eyes. “It wasn’t a date Carlota. We were just catching up.”

“You were catching up with an old boyfriend, who called you out of the blue and asked to spend time with you at an old hang out. That sounds like a date to me. You should have dressed up more. Wore a dress! You should have let me give you a makeover before you left.” She charged ahead, not letting Ronnie get in a word. “You’re a beautiful girl, you should show it more.”

Ronnie interrupted her rant while she was taking a breath. “You’re wrong Carla, it wasn’t a date.” She held a hand up to stop her well meaning cousin. “I’m not saying we’ll never date again, but this wasn’t a date. Also, I like the way I dress.”

Carlota sighed, “Yes, you’ve said so many times. I still wish you were more in touch with your feminine side, but I’ve long since come to accept you as you are.”

The rest of the ride back was taken up with meaningless small talk, and Ronnie zoned out. She thought back to her one time relationship with Lincoln. They’d dated for a small while, in middle school and high school. If you could call what they did dating. They were basically just friends, who spent a lot of time together and decided to call it dating. Though she guessed that was ninety percent of actual dating anyway. Really dating someone was just that, but with added physical intimacy. Hugs, kissing, handholding and stuff. They started to drift apart from each other eventually though. People might expect them to have started drifting away from each other when she moved in with her cousins family, but distance didn’t really have anything to do with it. It was near the start of high school, when they had drifted away from each other enough for there to be a noticeable strain on their relationship. Ronnie supposed it was just a matter of them going to different schools, having different classes, mostly different friends. They tried to hold on and keep it together, but something happened on Lincolns end. Something about Luna and a guitar. Ronnie never found out what really happened, but without Lincoln holding it up on his side, their relationship sort of collapsed under the strain.

The car pulled up the curb in front of the Santiago family house and store. Pulling the hood back up, Carlota locked the car, and they both walked through the front door. Ronnie climbed the steps and made her way to her room, where she flopped down on her bed.

Would she want to give having a relationship with Lincoln another try? Yes. Ronnie remembered liking it when they were dating. She still liked that they were friends now. Lincoln was a fantastic guy. Who knew, it might even work this time. They were older, and Ronnie liked to think she was wiser. They were almost out of high school. Surly they were old enough, by this point, that they could work through any potential problems and make a relationship work. Was that what Lincoln wanted out of all of this? She didn’t know. She kind of hoped he did. Maybe she would call him. She could invite him to hang out next saturday. Maybe take him to one of her more recent hang outs.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Turns out grape is an even weirder ice cream flavor than previously imagined. I have experience with things like this. You take a bite and say “This is good, but I don’t want any more.” Then you just never eat it again.
> 
> There’s a challenge in writing these chapters now that it’s not Lincolns birthday anymore. His birthday sort of allowed me to set up a frame to contain the events of the chapter. This, and this, and this are happening, because it’s Lincolns birthday. So that, and that, and that are going to happen regardless of the timeline. There are still certain things that will happen no matter what, in every timeline, but they’re fewer in number now. Of course the removal of the framework I worked with in the last set of chapters also allows me a bit more freedom and flexibility. For one, I can set a chapter so the events happen over more than a day. I can say that a chapter takes place over a week, with the caveat that if one chapter takes place over the course of a week, all the chapters have to exist on the same time frame. I need the timelines to match up with each other, otherwise later events in the story will get incredibly confusing and hard to follow. So for the sake of making the plot easier to understand for both myself and the audience, if a week passes in the control timeline, a week passed in every timeline. Though I may start the events of the week earlier or later in different timelines. What I mean is, in the control timeline the next time Lincoln and Ronnie Anne see each other is actually about two days after his birthday. So two days into the week, which started the day after his birthday. In Timeline two, Lori uses her day off to spend time with Lincoln the day after his birthday. So the events of Timeline two start at the very beginning of the week. PM me if you want a more detailed explanation.
> 
> Okay so, into the wilds. I’ll explain that choice of words to that one guy who keeps reviewing without logging it because he doesn’t want to look for his password. I typed up the first eleven chapters in about a month. Realistically it was two weeks, because I didn’t write for half of that month. I wrote for the first week, went on vacation for a week, got sick for a week, and then wrote again for another week. What I meant by “into the wilds” was. Chapter eleven was the last chapter in my writing frenzy that I was going to write before I started releasing chapters on FF dot net As for your comment on writing from the perspective of children. Yes… I do need to only use words that Lily would know. If I use words she wouldn’t know or use, then it’s not from her perspective. At that point it’s some unknown entity examining her thoughts and feelings from outside her. Not saying that’s a terrible writing style, but that’s not MY writing style. By only using words, phrases, and comparisons that Lily herself would use, I’m giving the most unadulterated view into her world possible.
> 
> I know from personal experience that people usually don’t actually stare at you, when you wear ridiculous stuff. Most of the time, they seem to go out of their way to Avoid looking at you. I didn’t include that particular tidbit in the chapter, because people expect others to stare at them when they’re wearing weird outfits. It would have taken an explanation, that would have broken story flow, to detail why people wouldn’t stare at Lincoln. It also makes the scene a bit funnier, with the inclusion of the detail that people were staring at Lincoln.
> 
> Yeah, Carnevil and Typing of the Dead are real games. I mentioned that I’m treating this as an alternate timeline to our own. It’s not the dimension where sandwiches rule the earth, it’s an alternate timeline. Some things are going to be the same. In fact, a lot of things are going to be the same. Just as a lot of things are going to be different.


	13. Timeline 2-2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is chapter two of timeline two. The Lori timeline. Hey… Flagg and AberrantScript… Hi… Earlier today I watched a video of a house collapsing. My first thought was “Gravity, It’s always bringing property value down.” If I start wearing a plaid skirt and putting my hair up in a pony tail, someone call the police… And a doctor.

 

There was something to be said about being one of the alternate Lisas. As Lisa-2, she didn’t have to worry as much about the consequences of her actions, as control Lisa did. If things went horribly wrong, she could simply collapse her timeline, and everything she had wrought would cease to be. Was she worried about such an outcome? No, It was inevitable. While the temporal stabilizers took very little power, and were exceedingly sturdy, nothing lasted forever. Her universe was less than a year old, despite her memories that told her she’d existed for ten years, she knew she was simply a copy of the control Lisa. The end of herself and everything around her wouldn’t be such a tragedy. It was honestly like a immense burden had been lifted from her shoulders. There was also the fact that she didn’t have as many responsibilities as control Lisa. Control Lisa had to record everything and coordinate everything to ensure the entire experiment remained on course. Lisa-2 only had to guarantee that one piece of the whole, went smoothly.

Speaking of that. Lori-2 was not being difficult in the slightest. At least, not yet. It was odd. Lisa-2 had expected things to be much more arduous, but her presumption simply hadn’t panned out. Perhaps their was more to Loris psychology than she initially supposed. Still, she couldn’t say it was a bad thing. Beyond her inceptive preparations, she hadn’t had to actually do anything but observe the unfolding situation and take notes.

**...**

Lori woke to the sensation of her pillow shaking. Her alarm was going off. She’d forgotten to turn it… No she hadn’t. She shook the tired fog from her head. She didn’t forget to turn her alarm off. She’d like, left it on deliberately. Normally she slept in on her day off, but this time she had something she was determined to do. She was literally going to spend the whole day with her little brother. She’d wanted to do it on his birthday, the day before, but she hadn’t managed to do it. Today though, today she was intent on getting in some good brother sister bonding time. She gathered her clothes for the day and set off for the shower, coming to a stop behind Lisa, who looked much more relaxed this morning than she did yesterday. That was a good thing. Lori didn’t know what was wrong with her the previous morning, but she was glad it wasn’t an issue any more.

“Morning Lisa.” She said.

Lisa turned to look at her, “Salutations eldest sister.”

“Who’s ahead of us?” Lori asked, thought she was pretty sure she knew the answer. It was a Saturday. Nobody had to wake up early, so like, nobody did. With the exceptions of Lisa and Luan. If Lisa was out here, then Luan was probably the one in the bathroom.

“Our resident comedian.” Lisa confirmed her belief. “If I may ask,” She continued, “Why are you prematurely awake? I seem to recall that this is your day off.”

The question caught Lori off guard. Why was she awake so early? Well, she wanted to get started on her day with Lincoln as soon as possible. She also wanted to get to him before he was distracted by anyone else, but he literally wasn’t even awake yet. It was a Saturday, he was probably going to sleep in for like, another two hours. Surely she could have set her alarm for later. The door opened, startling Lori from her thoughts and admitting Luan into the hall.

“Heya Lisa, Lori.” Luan waved at them, skipping passed.

“I suppose it doesn’t matter.” Lisa waved her previous question away. She stepped into the bathroom and shut the door.

Lori was left in the hall. She thought about restarting her previous line of thought, but she didn’t want to be interrupted before she could finish again. Lisa, after all, didn’t take that long in the bathroom, so Lori would likely only be standing there for a few minutes. She didn’t know if that was long enough. She would wait until in was her turn to use the bathroom.

Exactly four minutes later, the door opened again and Lisa stepped around her, allowing Lori entry to the restroom.

Stepping through the portal, she locked it behind her and started her morning routine, all the while wondering why she was up so early. Lincoln literally wouldn’t be up for another hour or two. Why hadn’t she allowed herself to sleep in more? There was the fact that her little brother might have gotten up unusually early for a weekend. It wasn’t very likely, but it had happened before. If he did, he may start hanging out with Luan or Lisa, before she could get to him, but did that really matter? She could still spend time with him after he finished with them after all. It wasn’t like Lincoln could only spend time with one person a day.

As much as she rationalized it though, she couldn’t shake a feeling of unease that bubbled in the pit of her stomach when she thought of him spending time with someone else today. Because what if he got distracted again? Or what if she got distracted? Or something happened, or they missed each other? What if he was exhausted from his birthday and only had enough energy to spend time with one person today? Did that matter though? So what, right? She could just hang out with him another day. But she didn’t have another day off for a week, and she was usually kind of tired, coming home on work days. She would still spend time with him if she was tired, but he might be hanging out with someone else. Why did it matter though? All that mattered was that he was happy right? He could spend time with whoever he chose. It’s not like it had to be her specifically. So why was she up so early?

She took a few calming breaths. She wasn’t getting anywhere. She needed a new starting point. She’d heard once that sometimes the best way to figure something out was to assume that something was true, and examine everything else with that assumption. Then you throw away the assumption if everything else contradicts it.

She lathered conditioner through her hair.

Alright so, assumption time. For some reason, she didn’t trust other people. She took a breath. Okay, there were some people she didn’t trust. Some of her teachers from law school, other lawyers, criminals, Flip, Carol. She had pretty good reasons for not trusting them, but Lincoln was unlikely to come into contact with them on an average day, let alone hang out with them. The people he was most likely to spend time with were: Clyde, Ronnie, Lily, Lisa, Lola, Lana, Lucy, Lynn, Luan, Luna, Leni, and herself. Clyde had mellowed out over the years. While she was pretty sure he still had a crush on her, he no longer passed out when she talked to him. Did she trust him though?… Sure. He wasn’t a bad kid, unwanted crush aside, and Lori didn’t think he’d ever purposefully hurt Lincoln. Ronnie was in a similar boat to Clyde, but without the crush… At least Lori hoped Ronnie didn’t have a crush on her… Lori literally wouldn’t know how to deal with that. Did she distrust her sisters? No. They were her sisters, she trusted them with her life. Did she distrust Lincoln then. Again no. He was her brother. So trust clearly wasn’t an issue.

Assumption two. She just… Really wanted to spend time with him for some reason……………… Her mind was blank… Yeah. Yeah, that was. That was it… She couldn’t think of a specific reason. Nothing had happened recently that would make her want to spend time with him, any more than she wanted to spend time with any of her other siblings. She remembered Leni telling her that Lincoln said he thought of his sisters as some of his best friends. Maybe she just wanted to reciprocate. Maybe she wanted to feel like she’d earned his friendship. Maybe she just honestly wanted to be his best friend. Maybe she just honestly wanted him to be her best friend. Did she? Did she want to be best friends with Lincoln? … Kind of, yeah. Yeah, yes, yes she did. So, she wanted to spend time with him because she wanted to be better friends with Lincoln. That was nice to know. She would have to thank Lisa for prompting her to think about it.

She unfurled her towel, and began putting on her clothes for the day.

**...**

Lincoln double timed it down the stairs.

“Lincoln!” He swung around to see Lori calling to him from the couch.

“Hey Lori. How’s it going?”

“Good, I was just waiting for you to come down.” She told him, and it quirked his interest to hear. What could Lori want with him?

“Alright, well, I’m going to eat breakfast and then we can talk.”

He rounded the corner, into the kitchen and strode across to the fridge. Opening it, he pulled out a carton of milk and set it on the table, rotating to look through the cabinets for some cereal. While Lily like Sugar Snaps, Lincoln couldn’t say he felt the same. It was just too sweet, he felt like he would get diabetes if he ate too much of it. Small children would yell blasphemy if they heard his opinion, assuming they could pronounce it and knew what the word meant. He wondered if this was what getting old felt like, because when he was a kid he used to love Sugar Snaps. Now he was more fond of just sprinkling brown sugar over a bowl of multigrain O’s, because he still wanted his cereal to be sweet, just not That sweet. He pulled a box of vanilla granola from the cabinet and poured himself a bowl. Granola was pretty filling compared to most types of cereal. Quickly consuming the food, he put the milk back in the fridge and put the bowl in the sink, where it clinked against some other dishes.

“Lori, you wanted something?” He entered the living room. She’d been playing with her phone, until he came back into the room.

She looked up from the screen and stood from the couch, “This is going to sound a little weird,” She began, “But, yesterday I didn’t get to spend much time with you. I felt kind of bad about that, so I thought I would spend all of today hanging out with you.”

“Sure, sounds like fun, but isn’t this your day off?” He quizzed.

“Yes, and I’ve decided to spend it with you.” She placed her hands on her hips. “So, what do you wanna do?”

“Well,” Lincoln wracked his brain for something he could do with Lori. Unlike everyone else in the family, he didn’t know what her hobbies were. He was sure she had some, because everyone had hobbies, but for the life of him, he had no idea what they could be, and he didn’t want to ask her. That felt… Wrong, somehow. “When I’m not hanging out with anyone else, I usually find somewhere to draw or write, but that’s not something that’s easily made into a two person activity.” He was kind of lying. He could think of several ways drawing or writing could be made into a two person activity. They could draw each other, for instance. Or they could pass a drawing back and forth, adding new things to it ever rotation, until it was something completely insane. They could do the same thing with a story, but Lincoln was aware that not everybody shared his passions. “Sometimes I play video games.”

“That sounds fun.” His oldest sister enthused. “You wanna do that?”

“Uh, not right now. It’s pretty early in the day. I like playing video games, but I don’t want to spend all day doing it.” He thought for a second, “I don’t know, what do you want to do? It’s your day off after all.” He asked partially because he was a little stumped on what they could do together, and partially because he was hoping that she would reveal some of her hobbies so he wouldn’t have to ask.

Lori looked a little put out by him turning the question back around on her, but she gathered herself quickly.

“We could go to the mall.” She suggested, breaking into a smile. “I’m sure we could both find something interesting to do there. Even if we don’t, it’ll still be fun to have a day out with you.”

“Okay, yeah. That sounds fun, and we can play video games when we get back, if you still want to hang out with me by then.” It actually did sound relatively interesting. It had been a while since Lincoln last went to the mall.

They announced their departure and where they were going, in case anyone needed them or wanted to now where they went, and strolled across the lawn to Loris car. Lincoln got in shotgun and they pulled from the driveway.

**...**

“So, how are things going with that… Guy?” Lori asked him vaguely, while they walked around the mall.

“Guy?” He returned, quirking an eyebrow.

“That comic guy? The one who wrote Ace Savvy?

“Bill Buck?”

“Yeah! Sorry, I couldn’t remember his name. How are things going with him? You still working with him?”

“Well issues of the Full House Gang are still being published, and I am the one who created them.” He wasn’t technically a full employee of Mr. Buck, due to several legal issues that he didn’t understand. He could probably ask Lori about them, but it wasn’t that important. He was, instead, listed as a paid intern. Though given his history with the author of Ace Savvy, he fully expected to be hired onto the staff, the moment he graduated from college.

“Full House Gang?” Lori looked confused, “I thought the comics were called Ace Savvy?”

“They are. The Full House Gang is a spin-off of the main story.” He explained.

“Huh, that’s cool. Isn’t the Full House Gang based on us?”

“Yeah. When I was trying to think of something for the contest, I took inspiration from the most inspiring people I know. That sounds super sappy, but it’s true.” He ducked his head, an embarrassed flush spreading across his cheeks.

“Awwwwww.” Lori stepped closer to him and reached up to ruffle his hair, “Link.”

“Hey, uh. Why don’t we get something to eat?” He asked hastily. Mostly to change the subject, but also because he actually was getting kind of hungry. It was approaching lunch time, and he’d been walking around with his eldest sister the whole day.

She didn’t answer verbally, and he refused to look at her and let her see his face, but when he took her hand and lead her in the direction of the food court, she didn’t resist and he figured that was assent enough.

**...**

Her breath caught in her throat, when Lincoln grasped her hand in his own and lead her along. She didn’t notice at first, but she forced herself to inhale when she started getting light headed. He pulled her to the food court and they sat down to eat, making small talk as they did so. Lincoln got over his embarrassment quickly, and they found themselves in easy conversation. She asked him how he was doing in school, and he told her about various projects he was working on. He asked her about work, and she told him about some of the funniest cases she’d worked on. She asked him how he liked his birthday, the day before, and he told her about what he did with Luna and then Lynn. He asked her about her favorite genre of music, and she told him about her fondness for electro-swing. She asked him about his hobbies outside of writing and drawing, and he told her about his like of free running and parkour. He asked her what else she wanted to do at the mall, and she changed the subject.

Getting up from their table, she threw away the trash and lead her favorite brother from the food court. She avoided his last question because she actually didn’t know what else she wanted to do at the mall. Unlike her siblings, she didn’t have hobbies, exactly. In the years since her break up with Bobby, she went to law school and passed the bar. She may have had hobbies when she was younger, but she didn’t really anymore. She became obsessed with Bobby, and everything else fell to the wayside. After she broke up with him, she became obsessed with graduating from law school and when she did, she found herself alone, and lonely. She missed her family, so she came home, but she also found that her obsessions had caused her to forget pieces of herself. She didn’t actually know what she found fun. She had a spelling bee trophy, but spelling wasn’t something she had fun doing. She liked video games, but only when she got to play with other people. What did she like to do while alone? She actually had no idea. The closest thing that came to mind was fashion, but it wasn’t something she even liked that much. Fashion was more Leni's thing, and to a lesser extent Lola's. Lori liked clothes, and looking good, but it wasn’t exactly something she could lose herself in and relax. It was… She needed something. Stress was stress, and family helped, but she wasn’t around them all the time, and she needed something to do to unwind.

Shaking herself from her thoughts, she found that despite herself, they’d drifted to a stop in the doorway of a clothes store. Forever Young, the sign said.

“Linky, Lori!” A voice happily called out, prompting Lori to turn to the source and see Leni approaching them.

“Hey Leni.” Lincoln greeted her, waving at her as she came closer. “What are you doing here?”

Leni bounced in place joyfully. “I was getting some totally amazing ideas for new outfits! What are you guys doing here?”

“Lori and I are spending her day off together.” He explained.

“Ooooh. Like a day trip?” She asked.

“Yeah, I suppose you could say that. We were just hanging around the mall, before we headed home though. Speaking of that, did you want anything from here Lori?”

“Oh, no. I wasn’t really paying attention when we came here. You want to go home now?” She asked him, having caught the implied meaning behind his question. Truthfully, she was just glad that they could get home and do something fun. She needed a distraction from her depressing thoughts.

“Sure.” He replied, in short. “Do you want to come too, Leni? Or are you going to hang out here for a while?”

“Hmm…” She tapped her chin in thought, “No. I only came here to borrow ideas, and I already did that. Let’s go home.” She followed them out with a spring in her step, and got in the back seat of Loris car.

On the ride back, Lori wondered if she should tell Leni about her problems. Leni had a reputation for not being that smart, but Lori knew, just as all the other Loud children knew, that Leni was very intelligent… Just not in the ways that most people were.

**...**

Over the last week Leni noticed a change in her biggest, bestest sister. Lori was happier than she used to be. She was the happiest that Leni had seen since Lori came back from college. It reminded her of back before Lori went away. When she was still in high school. She found Lori and Lincoln at the mall the day after Linky's birthday, and rode home with them They played some kind of game. Leni didn’t know what it was called, but it was in space, and there were gross people and a scary robot lady in it. Leni didn’t like it, but Leni and Linky did, and that was what mattered.

Lori was happy, and that made Leni happy. She didn’t used to spend time with the rest of the family, unless someone spent time with her. Leni always tried to do what she could to make sure Lori didn’t get lonely, but now Lincy was helping too. Lori was spending more and more time with their favorite brother. She came back from work every day, and made sure to say hi to Lincoln. Sometimes, if she had enough energy after doing paper work, she would sit down and play that space game with him some more.

There were other changes too though. When Lori wasn’t happy, she looked like she was searching for something. Sometimes Leni thought Lori was going to say something to her, but she didn’t. It was all very confusing.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Occasionally I check Tvtropes fanfiction recommendations. This is very petty, but I always feel a little disappointed when I see that none of my stories have been recommended on the site. I mean, as I said, it doesn’t matter, but I like to think my stories are good enough. Flagg and AS should probably also be on there…
> 
> Lisa doesn’t actually know for sure what would happen if a timeline collapsed. She’s never done this before, so she doesn’t really have any data on it. Lisa-2 has chosen to believe that her and everything around her would simply wink out of existence because it relieves her of a lot of stress. I mean, that could actually be what happens, but I’m not telling you. Even if it never happens, I’ve still got the mechanics worked out in my head. It’s easier to keep track of things if you create a full world. Like it you’re writing a science fiction story, you’re not going to go into detail about how the flying cars work, but it’s still good to figure out how they do. That way, even though it never comes up in the narrative, you can still use the information to ensure that things make sense and flow well the entire way through. In order to make certain that specific plot points make sense, I had to figure out exactly how everything works.
> 
> I sat for like fifteen minutes, just trying to figure out how to start Loris narration for this chapter. My original draft was pure exposition, but that’s terrible. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I’d settled for such lazy writing.
> 
> I wasn’t sure if it would be interesting for you guys to read about Lori rationalizing her mild obsession with Lincoln. You’ll notice that her logic, while not wrong, is incomplete.
> 
> I hung out with my friend and his girlfriend today. At some point we started talking about the girlfriends planters warts that she used to have. She said she didn’t get rid of them because she couldn’t be bothered, I immediately responded with “They also help with gardening.” Later, My friend complained about the sun blaring down on him. His girlfriend said it wasn’t so bad. I said “I find it pretty alarming when it blares at me, because the sun usually doesn’t make noise.”… Help me…
> 
> In order to ensure that events play out as naturally as possible, I had to figure out what everyone was doing before I even started the chapter. I wanted to avoid the problem that arose when I wrote the first eleven chapters. Where I wrote about Luna and Lincoln hanging out, without considering where Luan would have been while that was happening. By defining this all before hand, I can make adjustments as the story demands, but otherwise, everything plays out naturally. I know exactly where and why everyone is, so I don’t run into those kinds of problems anymore.
> 
> This chapter was a little awkward to write. There are things I have planned for this timeline, that I can’t get to yet, because it’s too early. Lincoln and Loris relationship hasn’t developed enough. So right now, I’m in a sort of limbo. Things will pick up, but for now things are a little cumbersome. I have a rule about not including anything that doesn’t add more than it subtracts. So right now, I have to carefully navigate through events until the timeline gets far enough and enough things have happened between them, that I can seriously kick things off.


	14. Timeline 3-2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is the new Leni timeline chapter… Uh… Let’s play rock, paper, scissors. Ready? Go! Rock, paper, scissors, shoot! Paper! Just tell me in the comments which one of us won.

Lisa-3 didn’t anticipate trouble on her end of the experiment. Leni was an uncomplicated person, in all the ways that were relevant to the study. While Leni unmistakably had depths and details that were observable once one paid attention; when it came to matters of the heart, for lack of a better term, she was very simple. Care would still have to be taken, so as not to scare Leni-3, but Lisa-3 predicted little to no complications.

**...**

“Leni! Put me down, I was eating breakfast!” Her Linky shouted as she swung him around the kitchen. Like the day before, Leni woke up today with the undeniable need to hug her bestest brother. Her Linky Loo Loo, as she totes used to call him when he was a baby. He was the most adorbs baby until Lucy, then Lola and Lana, then Lisa, then Lily.

“Lincy! We should totally play together today!” She bubbled joyfully, setting him back on the ground. He picked up his chair, which had been knocked to the floor when she lifted him up, and sat down to eat his oatmeal. Why was he eating oatmeal? She totes would have made him a smoothie if he asked her.

“Yeah, okay, we can do that.” He answered her around bites of mushy oats. Did you bite oatmeal? Leni thought something had to be solid to be bitten. You couldn’t bite juice after all. He slurped the oatmeal than? “What did you want to do?” He asked.

Leni rocked backwards and forwards, on her feet, while thinking about that. She’d been wanting to check out the clothing stores at the mall to borrow fashion ideas, but would Link really want to do that with her? She knew he would go along with her, because he loved her and he was the best brother out of any brother anywhere, but would he actually have fun? Leni didn’t know. She would ask, because that’s what you did when you didn’t know something.

“Ummmm…” She tapped her chin with one finger, “I wanted to go to the mall and look at the outfits. Are you okay with that?”

“I mean, I don’t want to do that all day, but I’m fine with a little window shopping.” He Finished his breakfast and slipped around her to the sink, to wash out the bowl and stick it in the dishwasher.

“Silly Linky, I’m not buying windows.” Leni corrected him, then stopped. Lincoln was raising one of his eyebrows at her. That usually meant she’d said or done something unusual. Dang it, she’d been getting much better about that lately. Did window shopping mean something else?

“Leni.” His voice was kind. “Window shopping means looking at things through the store window.” He corrected her.

“But that doesn’t make any sense.” She complained. It didn’t! Why would you call something shopping, when you weren’t buying anything? Leni didn’t like it when things didn’t make sense. It made her feel dumb. She felt her eyebrows lower into an unhappy line, and her mouth settled into a frown, until Lincoln placed a comforting hand on her shoulder and she brought her head up to look at him.

“It’s okay.” He calmed her, “You’re right, it doesn’t make sense. Sometimes things don’t make sense, that’s just the way things are.” He’d said these words to her many times before, but it always made her feel better, no matter how many times she heard them. “Come on, let’s go.” Her Linky took her softly by the wrist and lead her outside, to the bus stop.

**...**

Lincoln watched as Leni skipped and twirled from store front to store front, pressing her face against the glass and pointing out different outfits to him. He wasn’t the fashion expert that Leni was, but years of living in a house with ten sisters meant that he wasn’t completely clueless either. She would bodily drag him to one store, point out a set of lace stockings, and expound upon all the different kinds of outfits that the stockings could go with.

“Beyond hip slit dresses, if you wore a skirt you could pair it with a pinstriped button up dress shirt and a hoop belt, you could look like a totally amazing business lady!” She would gush, excitement visible in her features, as she vibrated in place with barely restrained energy. All the while Lincoln let the words wash over him, nodding encouragingly, and making mental notes in case she wanted his opinion.

She whipped her head around and dragged him to another store.

“Look Lincoln!” She exclaimed, pointing through the window at a dark orange tuxedo vest. “You would look totes amazing in that.” She breathed, her voice an exhilarated rasp. And looking at the piece himself, Lincoln did think he would look good in it, and not just because orange was his favorite color. If he got a blue tie to compliment it, and a white suit jacket and pants to match his hair… Of course he had no real reason to wear something like that outside of a wedding or similar occasion, but it would still be cool. He looked at his older sister and wondered if she was having similar thoughts. If she was, they were probably more detailed and complicated than his own, given that she had vastly more experience and skill in the realms of fashion design. Her eyes were glazed over and rather than looking at the tuxedo vest, she was looking past it, lost in her own thoughts.

Lincoln waited patiently for her to emerge from herself, looking around the area they were in. There were mostly clothing stores down the whole strip. A Forever Young was across the way, and down at the end was a shoe store. Glancing back at Leni, He raised an eyebrow, taking in the sight. Her mouth was slightly open, but otherwise normal, caught in her perpetual smile, and her cheeks were starting to redden in hue.

Alright, now might be a good time to shake her from her imaginings. If he left her, she may remain like that for hours. Lincoln didn’t want to wait around the mall that long, thank you very much. He grasped her shoulder and lightly shook her, to wake her from her self created trance.

Leni jumped and blinked her eyes several times. Closing her mouth, she turned a bashful smile towards him, and ducked her head in embarrassment. Lincoln decided not to comment on the matter.

“Come on,” He waved an arm towards the exit of the mall, “It’s around lunch time. Let’s go home and get something to eat.”

“Yeah, okay.” Leni complied, walking side by side with him to the doors leading outside. They got to the bus stop and waited for it to arrive.

**...**

“Hi Luna, Hi Luan, Hi Lynn!” Leni waved at them happily. Having just gotten home, she and Lincoln stepped into the kitchen to get something to eat for lunch and found the other three there too.

“Hey dudes.” Luna replied, “Where have you two been all blooming day?”

“Leni wanted to hang out with me and we went to the mall.” Lincoln told her. “What have you been doing?”

“Lynn asked us to help her with her defense in soccer, So we played monkey in the middle and went absolutely Ape! Ha ha, get it?” Leni got it. It was because an ape was a kind of monkey.

“We were just stopping for a break and a snack.” Lynn added, searching through the cabinets for food.

“OOOooooo, I’ll make smoothies!” Leni clapped, moving to the fridge and freezer, she pulled out everything she needed to work her art. Frozen fruits and unfrozen drinks, yogurt… Graham crackers, cream cheese… Looking down at what she’d gotten, she put back the yogurt and the juice. She put back all the frozen fruit, except the bananas, and pulled out peanut butter, vanilla, and honey. She had an idea. It wasn’t breakfast anymore, and it wasn’t dinner yet. You were allowed to have ice cream for lunch. This wasn’t that, but it was close. Leni could feel the eyes of her siblings on her back while she worked.

Pulling down and plugging in the blender, she poured in some milk, vanilla, and honey. Surging the blades twice, she built up a nice froth in the sweet vanilla milk. She tumbled a handful or two of frozen bananas into the cup. A few tablespoons of peanut butter, and few tablespoons of cream cheese. She revved the engine and watched as the blades whipped the mixture into a whirlpool of delish. It was twirly whirly trance causing. When it was smooth enough to earn its name, she grabbed up some graham crackers and crushed them in her hand, into the swirl. Letting it run for another minute, she shut off the machine and poured the contents into five glasses. Picking up some more graham crackers, she crushed them onto the top of each drink and handed her four siblings her creation.

Peanut butter, banana cream pie, smoothies. A bubbling excitement rose in Leni's throat, while watching her sisters and brothers take a sip.

“Oooh, Leni. This is really good mate.” Luna rasped, sipping the drink, and savoring each mouthful.

“This is the Cream of the crop Leni. Peanut Better then anything I’ve had in a while.” Luan didn’t even ask if anyone got her joke, too busy slurping her smoothie.

“Duuude.” Lynn sighed, “I don’t even feel like doing anything anymore. It’s like my muscles are melting… It’s awesome.”

Leni took it all in, before looking at Lincoln, waiting for his response. It was important to her that he liked it.

He was staring intently at the glass. It looked like he was trying to super vision through it and see his hand on the other side. Suddenly he gulped what was in his mouth and lifted the glass to his lips, drawing and gulping the liquid continuously. His eyes widened, and he brought a hand to his temple, gulping down the smoothie that was still in his mouth.

“Gah! brain freeze.” He shrank in on himself, holding his head with one hand, and the glass with the other, seemingly unwilling to put it down. “Uh. It’s really good Leni. I just wish I’d had the forethought to consider that drinking it all in under a minute, was probably a bad idea.” He still had half the glass though, so that was good. “Alright. Whew, I’m good. Lynn, you said you guys were taking a break? You want company? Leni and I just came back from the mall and relaxing for a while might be nice.”

“What?” Lynn blinked her eyes, until they focused. “Oh, yeah sure. We were just about to go up to Luna and Luan's food. Listen to some music and just hang out.”

“Cool, that sounds good. You want to just hang with them for a while Leni?” He turned to ask her.

She nodded, a blanket of content settling over her, and they all moved towards the stairs, bringing their drinks with them.

**...**

Leni woke up on Sunday, with a deniable need to hug her favorite Lincoln. Unlike the previous two days, she could resist it, but she really didn’t want to. What would be the point in that? It would just mean she got to spend less time with Linky Loo Loo. She wouldn’t get to show him how much she loved him. That was not okay. Lincy needed to know that everyone loved him always.

She swung her feet around and sat up from her bed. Looking around, she saw that Lori was already up and gone. Climbing to her feet, she half tread to her closet and pulled out her outfit for the day. She was thinking… Something with stripes. She pulled a long sleeve shirt from her closet. It had thin, dark blue and red stripes, and ran from side to side. She pulled out a pair of blue bell bottom jeans, a hoop belt, and her underwear. taking her sandals and sunglasses from her dresser, she stepped into the hall and walked towards the bathroom.

She quickly went through her morning routine and put on her clothes. Resting her sunglasses on top of her head, like always. She explored the house, looking for her Lincoln.

“Liar!” she heard Lily shout from the back yard. Moving into the kitchen and stepping into the back yard, Leni saw Lincoln, Lily, and Luna dressed up. Lincoln and Lily looked like super heroes. Luna looked like an army man mixed with a music person.

“She’s telling the truth.” Lincoln seriously told Lily, holding her back. Huh, they were playing a pretend game, Leni realized.

“You knew?” Luna asked, apparently shocked by the revelation.

“I Suspected, but I didn’t want to believe it.” He answered

“Heh, well you are the best detective.” Luna chuckled.

“No! Night Club, how could you!?” Lily fell to her knees sadly. Night Club?

“The game is up Night Club. Now tell us where Joker is.” Lincoln commanded. Joker? Oh! They were playing superheroes. They were pretending to be the Full House Gang. Ha ha. She clapped happily, drawing their attention.

“Hey Leni!” Lily called, from her kneeled position. “You want to play superheroes with us?”

“That sounds totes amazing! I’ve always wanted to play superheroes. Let me go get a cape!” She called back excitedly.

“Cool, we’ll wait for you here.” Luna told her, as she was turning to go back into the house.

Leni ran, a giddy bounce in her step, up the steps and to her room. Unrolling a reel of red fabric, she cut a length from the rest and quickly tied the corners around her neck to made an instant cape. She skipped back down the steps and to the back yard, where Luan was standing around with everyone else now.

“Oh, Leni is joining? That’s Super. Ha ha, get it?”

“Urg. Seriously? That’s not even a clever one.” Luna commented.

“I’m baaack!” Leni called, dancing across the lawn to them.

“Alright, cool. We were in the middle of something when you arrived though.” Lincoln explained. “Stand back a bit, we’ll go through the scene again, and when it’s over, I’ll introduce you and you can start playing. Okay?”

“Okay Lincy!” She bubbled, moving to sit on the steps back steps until he called on her.

“Okay, sooo. What were we just doing?” Lincoln cupped his chin in thought. “Ah, right. Okay.” He got back into an aggressive stance and pointed accusingly at Luna.

Luan jumped, startled, and rushed to get into the shed. She struggled with the knob for a second, before giving up, shrugging, and just turning around to wait for her queue.

“The game is up Night Club. Now tell us where Joker is.” Lincoln commanded.

“Don’t call me that! I left that name behind, along with my previous life!” Luna bellowed angrily, quickly falling back into character. “As for Joker,” She chuckled. “Allow me to introduce you to The Harlequin.”

Luan, dressed in purple and green, strutted over to Luna and stood aggressively next to her, her arms folded across her chest.

“Hey Ace, what do you call it when you watch your chances of victory swirl down the porcelain throne? A Royal Flush. Get it?” Her voice was soft, but nasty.

Lincoln tensed his jaw. “I’m sorry Deuce, we’re too late. I’m afraid you’re wrong about our chances of victory though, Joker. I always have cards up my sleeves. Eleven of Hearts, COME TO ME!” He shouted, and she leapt from her spot of the step to stand next to Lincoln and Lily.

Luna and Luan backed up a step, seemingly alarmed. “Che.” Luna spat to the side, “Trust Ace Savvy to be a cheater.” She stomped her foot forward.

They all glared across at each other… Or at least Leni tried to glare. She wasn’t sure if she did very well. She wasn’t very good at making unhappy faces. On an unspoken agreement, they all charged across at each other.

What followed was a lot of fun flailing and wrestling, as they all tried their best to pretend to fight without actually hurting each other. Lincoln and Lily faced off against Luna and Leni held Luan above her head.

“Oh my god! Leni, put me down! I have Eleven Heart conditions. Ha ha, get it?” She screamed as Leni swung her around. “Seriously though, put me down! I think I might throw up!”

They continued to flail and play and wrestle until they were sweaty and exhausted. Leni and Lincoln the only ones still on their feet, because Leni exercised a lot for her job, and Lincoln did free running and parkour as a hobby. The other three, who didn’t exercise as much, were laying around the yard in different places.

“Alright. I think that’s enough of that. Who wants to go inside and relax?” Lincoln, gulped air.

Nobody said anything, but Luna, Luan, and Lily raised their hands.

“Okay, cool. We can watch a movie or something. You know they made a direct to tv movie called Boat of Dreams? It’s apparently based on the Dream Boat tv show. Who wants to watch that?”

“Wooo…” Lily cheered tiredly.

“Rad…” Luna groaned, turning onto her tummy, she pushed herself onto her hands and knees and began dragging herself to the back door. She was soon joined by Luan and Lily, while Leni and Lincoln followed behind them

They pulled themselves into the living room, where Lori and the twins were watching a rerun of Dream Boat.

“Hey Lori.” Lincoln called to her, drawing her attention from the tv. “I see that you and the twins are watching Dream Boat, but how would you like to watch Boat of Dreams?”

She rose an eyebrow, “The movie based on Dream Boat?” She asked, “Is it on?”

“I don’t know if it’s on right now, but I recorded it last week.” Loris eyes widened at that.

“Well what are we waiting for. Let’s watch it right now. I want to see if it’s as good as the show.” She scooted over on the couch and allowed Lincoln to take the remote.

Leni sat down beside him and Lincoln flipped through the menus.

“Hey kids.” Their dad stepped into the room. “What’re you all doing?”

“Lincoln said he recorded the Boat of Dreams movie. We’re about to watch it.” Lola told him.

“Boat of Dreams?! The Dream Boat movie?! Holy cow! I’ll go get everyone else!” He ran off through the house. “Rita! Kids! We’re watching the Dream Boat movie!” He came back dragging his wife, and Lisa. Lisa looked kind of upset about being dragged into the room, which Leni thought was weird. She stopped struggling and sighed, as Lucy and Lynn filtered into the room and everyone gathered around the couch, holding their breath while Lincoln brought up the movie.

Lynn Flipped the lights off and covered the windows with the curtains.

“Oh no! I have twenty boyfriends and a yacht! How am I going to get rid of them?!” The movie began.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prior to this chapter, everything was happening in a single day, so I didn’t need to specify when something happened. I mean, if something happened after something else, then you would just rightfully, and naturally, assume that the second thing came second. You didn’t need your understanding to be any more detailed than that. Now you kind of do. Now you need to know that a day passed between one thing and another, otherwise things could get confusing. Like “wait what? They were just jamming out together, now they’re playing football? Isn’t it too late at night for that?” You know? Admittedly that’s not a great example, but the point stands.
> 
> To help anyone who didn’t pick up on this, Lincolns birthday fell on a Friday. The beginning of Lori and Leni's second chapters took place the day after, on a Saturday. Ronnie Anne's second chapter took place on a Sunday. I’m fairly certain I left enough details in the story that you could figure that out on your own, but it’s also possible that I just thought about putting those details in and then didn’t actually do it. That happens sometimes. So tell me if you’re ever confused about when stuff is taking place, and I’ll endeavor to include more details about time frame.
> 
> I said to LoudLurker that I’m having trouble fitting everything I want to fit in a chapter. That’s not true. Sorry for kind of lying. I’m actually having a different problem that’s similar, but harder to explain. So I settled for the close, but not quite true explanation. I’m sure I’ll get over it. As things shift around in my skull, some things become easier and other things harder.
> 
> In the first chapter of the second set (I’m considering each cycle through all the timelines to be a single set of chapters.) Lisa's narration transitioned smoothly into Lincolns and then Ronnie's. The Lisa narration at the beginning of each chapter after that, including this one, doesn’t transition as smoothly. However, I still think it’s good to take a peek into the mind of the custodian of each timeline.
> 
> If I do use that prompt, I won’t use it for a while. I want to finish Splitting Hairs before I attempt it.
> 
> Hey, sorry I’m a little late in posting this chapter. I don’t really have a specific reason for being late, so I’ll make one up. Archemios attacked me with his army of undead minions, so I had to dig a moat of holy water around my house to keep them at bay.
> 
> Sometimes when I lack motivation to write, I can use music as a kind of replacement for a natural drive. When I lose motivation to write a story, it’s not permanent. Sometimes I just go through minor bouts depression and I just don’t feel like doing anything that’s not mandatory. I can’t stop writing though. I have people waiting on me to post chapters, and it wouldn’t be fair to you guys if I stopped.
> 
> I wanted to call the smoothie a heavenly brew, but I realized that there’s no way Leni would call anything that. Those just aren’t the types of words she would use… Not to mention, she wouldn’t brag about the quality of her own creation. I thought about setting that scene from Lincolns perspective so I could use that terminology, but it gains too much from being from Leni's perspective to throw away, just for that.
> 
> These chapters are limited to the week ends, because… Well there are a number of reasons. By skipping five days at a time, I can use the audience assumption that their relationship progressed in that time, without having to write it. By skipping five days at a time, it also allows me to progress the story faster. Another reason is that if I included every day of the week in each chapter, the chapters would be too long… Like WAY too long. Eventually I’m thinking of having a vacation from school happen, and when that happens I’ll describe every single day of the vacation in detail. For now though…


	15. Timeline 4-2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is the Luna timeline. I’ve been a little caught up in stuff in my real life, so I actually haven’t had the chance to work on this until now. Now being November 4th. I Also kind of expect another of my chapters for “Do The Louds” to come out before this. Well, whatever. I hope you enjoy this. Admittedly I can totally crank out multiple full length chapters in a day, but only if I already know exactly what I want to do with the chapter. While I have plans for this timeline further down the line, right now I’m just doing relationship building stuff. That kind of thing doesn’t really need a specific plan. So I’m just writing and seeing where it takes me. (Next chapter I'm going to start using short authors notes at segment separators again. I didn't do it before because it would have been too much of a hassle to translate my original notes, but it's around this chapter, in my original postings, that I started writing them more coherently.)

 

 

Lisa-4 was beleaguered by small doubts. Easily dealt with, but irksome. She did the work that was necessary of her for the experiment. She made the changes to Luna-4 to and Lincoln-4 to allow romance to grow between them. And yet, Luna-4 had not acted significantly different from her control counterpart. She didn’t write Lincoln-4 a birthday song, but that seemed like a sign of decreased closeness, not increased. Lisa didn’t like the thought that all her hard work would have been for nothing. Did she need to tamper more? There was only so much more she could do to the subjects of this branch, before the results became invalid. Of course Lincoln-4 hadn’t behaved differently either. Lisa took a breath and calmed herself. Tapping her fingers against the arm rest of her chair, she decided. She wouldn’t interfere for now. She would watch and wait for changes to present themselves, and if they didn’t, only then would she step in. She flipped her computer monitor back on, to observe Luna. She was stepping through the door to Lincolns room. The feed switched cameras automatically. Luna was… Now that was interesting. Lisa pushed forward in her chair and examined what was happening.

**...**

Luna had a brief debate with herself about what to do when Lynn asked her and Luan to help her with her defense. Not about whether or not Luna would help her sister, that was never in question. Seeing how Luna didn’t really have anything else to do that day. Why not help Lynn, right? No, her debate was about whether or not she should go get Lincoln. On one hand, he was her best friend and she quite liked spending time with him. On the other hand, it was the weekend and he was probably going to sleep in for another hour or two. Was an extra hour or two of time with him worth waking him up early? Yes. Still though, she didn’t have to be an arse about it.

A knock on her little bros door didn’t get any answer, so she creaked the barrier open to peer into Lincoln larger than it used to be room. He was draped across the frame, face down with his legs spread across the far end, and his head, plus one arm, hanging off the side. It was… Actually kind of cute. It was also funny through, and Luna couldn’t contain her giggling. She caught her breath and considered the situation. What was the best way to wake him up? Lynn was waiting, so she couldn’t really stand around shake him until he woke up. It could take a while. She cocked her hip and cupped her chin with one hand, thinking about it. Well, he was already hanging off the bed. Maybe she could just take him with her. She didn’t think she was strong enough to carry him completely, but as long as she kept his head off the ground it would be fine right?

Wrapping a hand under both arms, she bumped the door open further with her hip, and began dragging her bro from his room. His head hung down, his chin resting on his chest. His body sloped down, with most of his lower body trawling over the carpet, gathering dust onto his pants and the bottom hem of his shirt. She struggled her way to the stairs, and was forced to stop. How was going to get him down the steps? She was tempted to just keep pulling him the way she’d been pulling him, but she was afraid of losing her balance and tumbling down with Lincoln. That would hurt at the very least.

She heaved a sigh. This was more trouble than she thought it would be. It was still totally worth it, but bleeding hell… She swept her eyes over Link, and then the stairs. Hmm… With a twist, she turned Lincoln onto his back. Setting his head down, she set about pulling his legs towards the steps, and pulling him down until his arse rested on the edge. All of which gained a groan from him. Moving back up the steps, she lifted his upper body off the floor again and began pushing him down the steps feet first.

**...**

Left? No, right! He spun around the corner and took down the approaching mutant with a few well placed shots. The situation was dire, the entire city overrun by these things; but with his sister, and his trusty lego gun at his side, he was sure they’d pull through.

“Clear!” He called over his shoulder.

Luna slid into existence beside him. Peering around the corner to check for anything he’d missed. Hefting her own rifle, she stepped into the open and swept her gun back and forth, ready for anything that would leap out at them, before allowing the gun to drop.

“I know you said it was clear dude, but I had ta double check, you know?” She turned back and they moved down the corridor.

They had their guns pointed at the floor, but held them high enough that they could quickly react to a surprise attack. Carefully trekking down the center of the hall, they let their eyes wander over the walls, checking for openings. All the while, Lincolns eyes kept finding their way back to Luna. He was proud of her. Maybe that was a weird sentiment. She was his older sister after all, but she’d accomplished so much in her life. She was a successful musician, she could hold her own in a mutant fight, she took care of herself and others, that time she disproved Einsteins theory on relativity was very impressive, she looked good in that outfit. He looked out over the cityscape from the rooftop, with Luna standing beside him, and shuffled from side to side so his lower body was rubbing along the railing.

Something was wrong though, He stopped sliding and turned around. Luna wasn’t with him anymore. That was bad. With the wall at his back, he was sinking. Where’d she go? He was standing at the edge of an abyss. Darkness too thick for him to see past, and he slipped in. Stairs appeared in front of him. Luna was gone. Maybe he’d find her if her walked down these stairs. He took a stumbling step down, almost tripping. Something was keeping him from falling though, like a invisible set of arms. His descent became more confident. Each step better than the last. He blinked, and was in darkness. Where’d everything go? He was still walking. His eyes were closed. He hadn’t blinked, he’d just closed his eyes. That was dangerous. He opened them.The view was blurry, as if he’d had his eyes closed for hours instead of moments, but it… He was at his house, and…

“AAAH!” He flailed, realizing that he’d just been dreaming and yet he was still walking down the steps.

“BLOODY HELL!” Luna shouted from behind him, as she struggled to keep him from slipping free of her grasp and falling down the steps.

“Ah…” Lincoln heaved, “Oh god.” He took a few gulping breaths to calm his racing heart, and took stock of the situation he’d found himself in.

He was being guided down the steps by the very sister he’d just been dreaming about. Why was she guiding him though? That seemed like an incredibly dangerous thing to do, for recently demonstrated reasons.

“Uh, Luna, what are you doing?” He grabbed the railing and steadied himself, allowing her to let go of him and continue down the steps under his own power.

“You know. I had reasons for doing this, but now that I’m thinking of ways to explain this situation, they all sound really stupid.” Lincoln could hear the embarrassment in her voice.

“Okay. That’s totally fine… I mean it’s not fine, but I’d rather you told me your reasoning, than not.” He reached the bottom and turned to look at her.

“Well, Lynn asked Luan and I if we could help her with her defense in… Some… Sport… And I thought, why not bring Lincoln along, right? You were asleep though, but I still wanted to spend time with you, so I decided to just bring you along. You weren’t supposed to wake up on the stairs.” She whined the last part apologetically, even as she stepped passed him and lead him to the back yard.

He followed, but only because his annoyance wasn’t enough to overpower his desire to see her happy… She also actually sounder sorry.

“Okay.” He pinched the bridge of his nose, “how about you just wake me up next time. I’m always happy to spend time with you, but I’d rather wake up in my bed, then in the middle of walking down the stairs.”

“Well, yeah. It’s obvious now. Hindsight and all…” She trailed off.

He moved in step with her, and patted her of the shoulder. “It’s okay. I’m not upset. I was just a bit alarmed is all. “So what are we helping Lynn with again?”

Luna answered, grateful for the subject change. “Lynn asked Luan and I to help her practice defending. I don’t actually know what sport she wanted help with, but as long as it’s not a contact sport, like football, I didn’t see any reason not to help her.”

Lincoln opened the back door and tread across the lawn to where Lynn and Luan were waiting.

“Hey, Lincoln!” Lynn called across the lawn. “You’re helping too?”

“Yeah!” He called back. “Luna asked, and I didn’t really have a reason not to help. She said you wanted help with your defensive strategies, but she didn’t tell me what we were doing exactly.”

“Alright!” Lynn looked excited, “practice will be even better with you here. No offense to Luna and Luan, but they’re not exactly athletic.”

“Hey, you and Lincoln may be able to run Diamonds around me, but I’m Batter than I look! Ha ha, get it?” Her double pun was met with groans.

“Uhg,” Lynn dragged a hand down her face. “Nice try, but we’re not playing baseball.”

“Yeah…” Luan furrowed her brown, “I couldn’t think of a good soccer pun.”

**...**

The sun hung directly overhead, and the air was getting a little hotter than Luna would have liked. Not that she hated being outdoors, but it was more Lynn and Lanas thing… And sometimes Lincoln and Lily.

Lynn kicked the ball back to her after successfully blocking it.

Fun as the current events were, Luna couldn’t help that her thoughts kept drifting in other directions. Not any one specific thing, but she thought about that song she wasn’t done with yet. The theme song for Lincoln. She wondered if he’d even noticed that she didn’t sing him a birthday song.

Lincoln rolled the ball onto his foot and moved to launch it passed Lynn, but he snapped his foot up at the last second and the ball was sent sailing over their sporty sister instead.

Lisa had been acting a little off in the last few days. It probably wasn’t anything to worry about, but it was still something that she’d noticed.

Lincoln and Luan began a game to see how many times they could kick the ball back and forth between each other, before Lynn caught it.

Lynn had a good body. Somethings Luna wished that she was as athletic as Lynn was, but exercise sucked cock snot. Lisa could probably give her a fit body, but Luna didn’t think she had what it takes to maintain it…

Seven times, it turns out. They could kick it back and forth seven times. Including all the times it took for Lynn to realize they were bluffing whenever they looked like they were going to kick the ball in Luna's direction. Lynn kicked the ball back to Lincoln.

She wasn’t exactly out of shape, but Lynn wasn’t wrong earlier when she said that Luna and Luan weren’t in shape either. She was thin and healthy. That’s about all she was willing to commit to. Though she wondered if guys might like her more if she got in shape. Maybe she should ask Lincoln.

Cramp! Ow. Cramp.

“Hey.” Luna called a stop to the game. “I’m a bit knackered.” She massaged her side. “Anyone want to go inside and chill for a while?”

Lincoln was the first to accept.

“I didn’t actually get the chance to shower or eat anything before coming out here, so I wouldn’t mind relaxing for a while.” Oh… Now she kind of felt bad.

“Alright, fine. We’ve been doing this for a while already, and you did help me improve my game.” Lynn said.

They moved towards the back door and entered the kitchen, where Lincoln split off from them.

“Are you guys okay with getting me something to eat, while I take a shower?” He asked them.

“Sure.” Luna responded.

Lincoln turned and climbed the steps, leaving his three sisters to prepare something to eat.

**...**

“Give up Mistress Music. We have you cornered. There’s nowhere to run.” Ace Savvy stood, his cape billowing in the wind. Next to him, stood just one member of the Full House Gang, The Deuce. She was bearing her teeth and growling softly.

“Tell us what you did with Joker and Night Club, Fiend!” The Deuce shouted dramatically, Her voice echoing across the gap.

Across from them, Mistress Music stood in her customary, musically themed costume. All Purple and Plaid, a ammo belt containing microphones was strapped across her chest. She stood at ease, in this empty field, in front of an abandoned warehouse, holding her sonic guitar. The grass rippled and whistled in a passing breeze.

“Heh, heh, heh.” She began to chuckle, “Where is Night Club, you ask? You don’t get it do you?” She smirked evilly and met their hostile gazes with her own, “I am Night Club, you fools! You can’t even see what’s right in front of you!”

“Liar!” The young Heroine Screamed across the field, “Night Club would never betray us!” She was held back from attacking, by the steadying hand of Ace.

“She’s telling the truth.” He intoned seriously, his face set in a hard line.

“You knew?” Mistress Music asked, shocked by the revelation.

“I Suspected, but I didn’t want to believe it.”

“Heh, well you are the best detective.” Mistress Music conceded.

“No! Night Club, how could you!?” The Deuce fell to her knees in despair.

“The game is up Night Club. Now tell us where Joker is.” Ace commanded.

“Don’t call me that! I left that name behind, along with my previous life!” Mistress Music bellowed angrily. “As for Joker,” She chuckled. “Allow me to introduce you to The Harlequin.”

A green and purple dressed femme fatale, stepped through the door, out from the abandoned warehouse. She strutted over to Mistress Music and took a stance of aggression beside her, her arms folded across her chest.

“Hey Ace, what do you call it when you watch your chances of victory swirl down the porcelain throne? A Royal Flush. Get it?” Her voice was soft, but held a sinister undertone.

Ace Savvy’s jaw clenched, his teeth grinding together audibly.

“I’m sorry Deuce, We’re too late. Jokers already been turned.” He looked down sorrowfully, before looking back up and shifting into a fighting stance. “You’re right about one thing Mistress Music.”

“Oh?” She chuckled, “and what might that be?”  
“You’re correct that you have the advantage here. With you two against me, I only have The Deuce backing me up, and she’s not very experienced yet. The outcome of this battle would seem to have been determined already.” The dirt crunched under his feet as steadied his position.

“Well.” The Mistress said, “As long-

“But you would be a fool to count me out yet.” Ace cut her off, earning himself a snarl from her.

“It looks like Ace here, isn’t playing with a full Deck.” The Harlequin scoffed, “Let’s just put him out of his misery.”

“I couldn’t agree more.” Mistress Music punctuated her reply by strumming her sonic guitar, sending a shockwave of force across the gap. It hit nothing but cap, because Ace had already started dodging by the time she launched it.

Rolling back to his feet, he dashed towards her to begin a furious melee battle. He ducked to avoid a swing from her guitar, and she jumped back to dodge his sweeping kick. In the background she could see The Deuce and The Harlequin duking it out.

“The Deuce! I match your hand and Raise!” The Harlequin shouted, hurling a handful of exploding poker chips at her foe.

The fight went on like that for a while, but it soon became clear who was winning. Experience or no, The Harlequin and Mistress Music had never been the most athletic members of the team; mostly relying on their tricks, traps, and equipment to get the job done. While Ace Savvy was the fastest team member, and The Deuce had so much energy, it was like she had a rock song playing just for her.

The fight was over when Mistress Music ducked under a telegraphed roundhouse kick, only for Ace to barrel roll over her lowered frame. His cape smacked her in the face and disoriented her long enough for him to come from behind and seize her in a joint locking grapple.

“The fight is over Harlequin. Give up!” He called to her teammate.

Harlequin turned to look, and froze.

“You may have won this round Ace, but next time we’ll see who’s really King. I’m going to Jack you up.” She snarled, throwing a smoke bomb at her feet and abandoning Mistress Music to her fate.

A ripple of laughter threatened it’s way passed Luna's lips, and burst out when the smoke cleared to reveal a hysterically laughing Luan, rolling around on the lawn. Lincoln laughing himself, even as she relaxed in his embrace. That which she had pretended was a joint locking grapple, revealing itself to really be a snuggling hug. Lily joined Luan on the ground, rolling around and expending what energy wasn’t used during the play fight.

“Hey, do any of you want to watch a movie?” Lincoln asked his gathered sisters, His chuckles tapering off, his head coming down to rest on Lunas shoulder.

“That sounds rad.” She rasped, calming down herself.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Releasing a chapters in slightly under a week each, was always a best case estimate. Sorry about that. Things often times don’t go the best they possibly could. I mean, I’m not hitting any tragedies here or anything, so you can continue to expect updates for this story. Things have just been kind of busy in the last few weeks.
> 
> I find that if you’re properly descriptive, you can make anything interesting to read; even a detailed account of someone dragging someone else through the house.
> 
> That dream that Lincoln had, was an adaptation of a dream that I had one time. The second half of the dream was just his mind adapting the dream according to the changes it registered in his bodies positioning, but the part about shooting mutants with guns that were made of lego bricks? That was all me.
> 
> I sat, trying to think of a good sports pun for like half an hour. I’m not even exaggerating.
> 
> I honestly wasn’t sure if I should use the phrase “Sucked cock snot.” I figured it was okay, as long as Luna didn’t say that out loud. I mean, I curse like a sailor in my head, but I generally don’t curse out loud. So… Who’s to say that Luna doesn’t also curse in her head? I guess since I’m writing the story, I’m the only one who can say…
> 
> It’s like one in the morning, and fruit flies have infested my kitchen. It’s gross. I ordered something to kill them, but until that arrives, I’m trying the old vinegar and soap in a jar trick.
> 
> I’m going to go ahead and warn you that the superhero play acting scene is going to happen in most of the timelines. The reason for that will become clear in Lilys timeline, but if you don’t get it after that chapter, I’ll explain it in a chapter note when that chapter comes around.


End file.
